Denver Post

Cops need training on disabled

Thursday, July 31, 2003 - The July 5 police shooting of developmentally disabled Denver teen Paul Childs and the killing in April of a 20-year-old mentally handicapped man spotlight the need for better training of police to avoid such lethal results.

Childs, 15, was shot to death inside the doorway of his Park Hill home as he clutched a knife with which he had allegedly threatened his mother. In April, Shaun Gilman, who was bipolar, was shot to death after a confrontation with Denver police, who claimed he pointed a crossbow at officers. Gilman, who recently had moved out on his own, had stopped taking his medication and was involved in an automobile accident and confrontation after an incident at a convenience store.

Childs' mother, Helen, has begun a push for a "Paul's Law" that would require better training of law-enforcement officers in dealing with mentally ill and disabled people.

Of five fatal police shootings in the city this year, four have fit the criteria for Crisis Intervention Team training, which covers issues such as mental illness, "suicide by cop," medication issues and developmental disabilities. But only 123 of Denver's police officers have received the 40-hour training course, and even though one such officer was present at the Childs home, the CIT officer's role in the incident is still unclear because investigation hasn't been completed.

Not every member of Denver's 1,400-officer department can be CIT-trained, especially in tight-budget times.

There are alternatives: Some advocacy groups for people with mental illness or disability offer brief familiarization courses for officers who volunteer. From the other side of the fence, the Boulder Police Department offers a course for people with disabilities to familiarize them with police procedures.

Sadly, many people who are mentally ill, developmentally challenged or who have suffered brain injuries sometimes have trouble obeying commands or reacting quickly enough under stress. Sometimes, they become extremely agitated. Many police officers expect instant obedience to their commands, and that can result in tragedy.

Yet some metro departments have used more patient approaches to calming down people with "invisible disabilities" while still making it clear to the such people that some types of behavior are unacceptable.

Raising awareness of special problems involving people with disabilities is a worthy goal and one that private advocacy groups can achieve with persistent educational campaigns.

At a time when both state and municipal budgets are under pressure, we're reluctant to support new, unfunded requirements. But it would seem a wise precaution for police departments to train their officers to better deal with such situations.

Shooting to kill may be the most expedient response in some officers' minds, but from our perspective, it's a very unsatisfactory way to deal with the disabled.

Less-lethal means of controlling disabled subjects and more patience may not work in every case, but in the long run, if we are to claim this is a humane society, our police need to find ways to deal with such crises without killing the very people they're supposed to help.