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Sun Gazette VOLUME 38
GREAT FALLS McLEAN OAKTON TYSONS VIENNA
NO. 18
JANUARY 5-11, 2017
Crisis-Intervention Efforts Gain Acceptance Training Helping Local Police Handle Incidents Involving Mental Health
HEADED TO THE HOOP!
BRIAN TROMPETER Staff Writer
Potomac School’s Sara Park slips past defender Tyler Mackie of West Potomac while driving to the basket in the championship game of the girls Joe Cascio Holiday Tournament at Falls Church High School on Dec. 30. Potomac School lost in the final to finish second in the competition with a 2-1 record. See story in Sports. PHOTO BY DEB KOLT
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Vienna police Sgt. Peter Elias once encountered a young man threatening to kill himself by jumping off a third-story apartment balcony. The man was despondent because he recently had lost his job and was about to be evicted by his brother. The man feared arrest if he stepped back from the ledge, but Elias promised to let him speak to a mental-health professional about what he was going through. “I took the time and built a rapport with him, got a family member to come and talk to him with me,” he said, adding that the man’s brother later drove him to a treatment facility. Fairfax County since 2006 has offered Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training, initially accredited through the Department of Criminal Justice Services. The program has evolved since and the county now teaches the national or “Memphis” model, said county police Lt. Ryan Morgan, the department’s CIT coordinator. Since June 2015, the county has trained 265 lawenforcement officers, including 173 from Fairfax County police. Vienna police have put about 10 officers – including all patrol supervisors – through the program. “The tactics, methods and theories they teach us in this class . . . we could use them on pretty much everything we do in law enforcement,” Elias said. “It refreshed some old things that I’d forgotten to do and gave me alternative avenues I can use.” The program always is full and any slots that open up immediately are filled, Morgan said. To