4 Cambridge Mental Health Crises In A Week, Help Available: Police

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Four notable public safety responses involving residents struggling with mental health issues have occurred since Friday, Cambridge Police announced in a news release Wednesday.

Three of the four residents were armed, though each situation was resolved peacefully without any injuries and each of the residents was taken to the hospital, Cambridge Police said.

In the most recent incident, which occurred Tuesday night, a man in his 40s was experiencing severe psychosis and threatening to kill his parents, according to police. His parents ran out of their home and locked themselves in their vehicle while their son barricaded himself in a room inside the house and refused to leave, police said.

After three hours of communication through the door with police, a clinician, and officers from the Crisis Negotiation Unit, the man eventually opened the door and agreed to be transported to the hospital for an evaluation, police said.

Just a day earlier, on Monday, police found a man in his 40s setting a bush on fire with a lighter in the 1000 block of Massachusetts Avenue. An investigation revealed that the man had also burned multiple piles of trash, one of which was on top of an electrical outlet, police said. The Cambridge Fire Department extinguished the burnt property and the man was taken into custody by police and charged with four counts of “Burn Personalty,” as he was also suspected of setting fire to a church dumpster in an alleyway on Mount Auburn Street a few days earlier.

In another incident Sunday, police were called to a reported domestic incident in which a man in his 20s was suffering an " escalating mental health crisis" and damaging property in his family's home with a hammer, police said. When officers attempted to speak with the man on the scene, he threated to kill a parent and officers while holding the hammer before locking himself inside a room, police said.

During that time, a supervisor brought in a 40mm "less lethal" launcher, which was shown to the man after he exited the room with the hammer, police said. The man followed a command to drop the hammer and was involuntarily taken to the hospital for evaluation and treatment, according to police.

Police found and confiscated the hammer along with a long knife, an airsoft gun, and tactical gear that was in the room in which the man was barricading himself.

On Friday, a man in his 20s who was initially taken to the hospital on Jan. 23 after he was threatening students on campus with a baseball bat, using racial slurs and slurs relating to sexual orientation, and punching a college student, was taken to the Cambridge District Court after assaulting at least five hospital employees.

There, a local judge ordered that he receive longer-term treatment and evaluations at the Bridgewater State Hospital, police said.

In the wake of the recent string of mental health crises in Cambridge, Cambridge Police highlighted the availability of resources for members of the community who are struggling.

"As a reminder, the state recently launched several programs to make it easier for children, teens, and adults to get help for mental health conditions and substance use disorders," police wrote in the news release.

Everyone in Massachusetts now has access to a free 24-hour behavioral health hotline (833-773-2445) and a state-funded network of 25 Community Behavioral Health Centers (CBHCs) that serve every community in the Commonwealth, the department said. These programs were created as part of the state’s Roadmap for Behavioral Health Reform plan.

Cambridge residents can access services locally through the Community Behavioral Health Center at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA). Services include free 24-hour CHA Access and a Crisis Line: 833-222-2030.