Criminalizing Mental Illness Not Acceptable: Herndon Police Chief

HERNDON, VA — The first incident Herndon Police Chief Maggie DeBoard responded to as a rookie officer 35 years ago involved an elderly woman armed with a butcher knife who was experiencing a schizophrenic episode.

"Without the less-lethal tools option that we have today, we were very lucky to resolve that issue with no injury to anyone," she said.

As DeBoard shared her memory of that indecent during a Tuesday morning press conference in Ashland, she also recalled the complex process involved in taking the woman into custody in an emergency order, transporting her to an emergency room, waiting for her to be medically cleared, and then eventually processing and taking the woman to where she needed to go.

"Nothing has changed about that system in 35 years," DeBoard said. "And when you think about police reform and you think about how we do business in technology and laws and policy and procedures, all of that has changed radically in our profession in 35 years, all of it. ... But the process and how we deal with mental health has not changed."

DeBoard was speaking Tuesday in her role as the current president of the the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police & Foundation (VACP).

"We are here today alongside many of our partners in the mental health community to call attention to the immediate crisis before us involving the lack of both in-patient psychiatric bed space as well as community based resources for mental health services affecting every community within the Commonwealth of Virginia," she said.

DeBoard was joined by other VACP leaders and representatives of the Virginia Association of Community Services Boards (VACSB), Mental Health America of Virginia (MHAV), and the Virginia Municipal League (VHL) to call for more state funding for mental health resources.

"What we know today is that the mental health system in Virginia is clearly broken," she said. "We've seen the slow degradation of available resources in the state over time and what we've also seen is that the need for mental health resources has continued to grow."

In the 35 years since DeBoard has been a police officer, wait times for persons needing an in-patient psychiatric bed have increased, while the availability of those beds has declined.

"There are significantly more people in need of beds than there were 35 years ago," she said. "That tells you how broken our system is."

While the mental health care community has been sounding the alarm about this growing crisis for years, DeBoard said it was long past the time to address this problem.

"We have to make that commitment now, not only to rebuild these programs and services, but literally change the way we approach assisting those who need mental health services resources," she said. "The time is now, absolutely now, to start planning strategically to create a sustainable community-based mental health services so fewer people end up in crisis and need beds and so that they can be treated without being transported away from the support of their families and loved ones."

Although law enforcement is continually called upon to respond to incidents involving someone experiencing a mental health crisis, the issue is not a law enforcement one, according DeBoard.

"This is happening at a time when our General Assembly, the public, and our own profession want to reduce our role in handling mental health calls," she said. "Yet we're continually called upon to do more."

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam signed into law a bill passed by the General Assembly during its 2020 session establishing the mental health awareness response and community understanding services (Marcus) alert system. The law went into affect on March 1.

While the mental health community welcomed the alert system, DeBoard said it did nothing to address the lack of in-patient psychiatric bed space in Virginia. It also failed to provide alternate resources at the local level to help people receive help before they experience a mental health crisis that results in a police response.

Police routinely encounter people in need of mental health services, but officers don't have local behavioral health resources to which to refer them, according to DeBoard. If resources are available, they're so scare that the public is unable to access them.

"We repeatedly end up in contact with individuals who can't get help or refuse to get help," she said. "Ultimately, the lack of community-based resources can often lead to involvement in the criminal justice system instead of mental health facilities that may lead to a more appropriate and positive intervention. Criminalizing mental health illness can never be an acceptable answer."

On Wednesday afternoon, Northam announced he was going to commit $485 million in state and federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help bolster Virginia's behavioral health system. The governor said the money would be targeted where it was needed most — hospitals, community-based providers, and substance abuse prevention and treatment programs.

When asked whether this money would alleviate some of the concerns raised by DeBoard and others on Tuesday in Ashland, Northam said it was a downpayment.

"This has been ongoing for years," he said. "It was exacerbated by COVID-19. We're making a commitment from the ARPA funding, but as I said, we have an upcoming budget in December that I'll propose, and then these legislators will address that in 2022. We'll continue to make this a priority. This is just a start of what we need to do."

Related:

VA's Strained Behavioral Health System To Get $485M Boost