Director Talks About San Diego County PERT

This is KPBS Midday Edition. I am Maureen Cavanaugh . San Diego County psychiatric emergency response team are meant to help in police calls or mental health may be a factor. But there were no part -- PERT members at the El Cajon shooting of Alfred Olango . Market share to talk with us. He is from the emergency response teams. Welcome. Thank you. BL cold -- the El Cajon Captain said they did not have a PERT team working that day because they were on another mental health call when this call came out. They did not arrive in time but they did drive out there. Is that happen often? It is true. A PERT unit was available and on another call. I cannot speak specifically about this circumstance. In general, what could happen is that a PERT unit could be called in but not be able to do a service because of the nature of the call it self. That primary issue would be one of the safety of the officer or the subject, or bystanders or our PERT clinician . What would usually happen is the PERT arrives. Let me explain what a PERT is. It is a licensed health personnel and a police officer. They arrived on scene and it is up to the law enforcement officer or deputy to ensure safety for everyone . It is almost as if it is a dance. For example, the officer make start to engage the person in crisis in conversation and talk about what's going on. If that person is amenable to talk to the clinician, then the PERT clinician would be invited to step forward and have a conversation. Let me walk through that step I step. But first back to what the police chief, Jeff Davis, was thing, that there was a PERT team on another call and did not make it to this particular incident with Alfred Olango. Does that happen often where you find yourself stretched? Do we have enough PERT teams ? Since 2009, San Diego County law enforcement is seen and 84% increase in 911 calls coming in of a psychiatric nature. In that same timespan the population has only increased by 5%. We cannot be everywhere at every time but I do note that for the last fiscal year, we did have roughly 6700 calls that came into a dispatch center where the dispatcher concluded that that person was definitely a danger to him or herself, perhaps to someone else or greatly disabled. And yet we were able to respond to those situations. Are there many that you have to miss because you are on another call extract the other interesting thing about PERT is we are cross during this -- cross jurisdictional. Dispatchers can look for a PERT trained officer and any officer in the field can requests from dispatch to see if they neighboring PERT team is available to respond to a call. In other words, a San Diego PERT unit could report to a Sheriff's jurisdiction or vice versa. Do note that was done in this case? I am not sure. We talked about what happens when PERT gets on the scene. So they do not just run out of the car and approached the individual first. The police officer does the assessment as to whether or not it is dangerous to approach the person. Is that right? Absolutely. The PERT officer will confer with the deputy on the scene and they jointly determine if it is okay to approach the scene are not. But you are exactly right. We just don't run in there because there are safety risks. If it is safe, how-tos PERT approach and de-escalate this type of situation? One of the great things that we have where we are. With a deputy writing the shift is if they PERT call comes in, our PERT clinician can access the County electronic health records to see if in fact that person in crisis is in the system. This is very helpful in many cases to get a background before we even get in there. the other thing is we talk a lot about relationship building. It's all about the relationship. So we may have had frequent contacts with certain individuals and our family members -- their family members and caretakers. When we go into the person for the opening comment, hopefully, we are prepared to know something so we can have a report which will build trust. In this incident of Alfred Olango , the original call was made by a family member to police. Do you, as a member of a PERT team ever contact that family member before you make the initial approach to a person if you know that the family member is the one who contacted police extract absolutely. The third-party information is essential in determining what is going on because, you can imagine, sometimes when we do arrive on the scene and talk to the person in crisis that person may deny having made certain comment. So it is important to get contacts from a mother, a., A case manager, or a clinician. That all goes into the mix to make a decision about the best way to proceed. It might be a suggestion to transport by a case manager. The initial interaction between a police officer and the person in distress has sometimes lead to fatal consequences. I am wondering if you see any different way that that could happen. Could there be some sort of intervention before any type of force is used? Yes. PERT also provides training. Last year we had 24 training and we trained 2223 law enforcement officers. This training is to give them tools. How this hits the road. What is effective and what is not effective. If an officer is responding to someone who is delusional, what is the best response and what we -- and what response would backfire with that individual? This also works with detention deputies working in the jail. This is helpful to build a report. Then the person can de-escalate. You know if El Cajon Police Department has received that training? The El Cajon Police Department has been part of PERT for years. They are very compassionate and very interested in our training and appreciative. Considering the things that of been in the news including the death of Alfred Olango, many people may be afraid to call police if a family member or loved one is having a mental health crisis . It they cannot call police, who can they call? If you called 911, ask for a PERT unit or a PERT clinician. The dispatchers can determine that as well. We do try to empower people to ask for assistance from PERT. We do understand that. does indeed occur. Thank you, mark. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.