NEWS, COMMENTARY, AND ARTS BY PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVORS, MENTAL HEALTH PEERS, AND OUR FAMILIES
VOL. XXXV NO. 2
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FROM THE HILLS OF VERMONT
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SINCE 1985
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FALL 2020
State Police To Add Mental Health Clinicians
MONTPELIER — The state police have been authorized by the legislature to expand use of embedded mental health clinicians from two to nine of its 10 barracks in the next year, despite strong objections to that model of crisis response in testimony by psychiatric survivors. The positions will be filled
through contracts with local mental health centers, according to language included in the state budget. The program was the subject of intense, last-minute negotiations between House and Senate leaders before the close of the legislative session in September. The House had directed that mental health support to assist police with emergencies be considered a health issue, with the funding removed from the budget of the Department of Public Safety. It placed responsibility under the Department of Mental Health. It also said that, where possible, priority for the staff positions should be given to mental health peer workers, and it directed that marginalized
communities, including psychiatric survivors, be included in planning. Senate negotiators rejected those requirements and said that the funding and oversight
should remain solely within the purview of the state police, because culture change in law enforcement needs to come from within. In a compromise late in the evening before the final budget was adopted, senators agreed to say that the state police, although in charge of the program, must collaborate with DMH to support incorporation of trauma-informed services and the ongoing engagement of stakeholders, “including individuals with lived experience of a mental health condition or psychiatric disability.” The peer staffing language was struck. Sen. Tim Ashe criticized it, saying that the legislature often talks about initiatives being evidence based, and “then we go and create provisions that aren’t necessarily based on evidence.” During five hours of testimony over three days, the House Health Care Committee heard
from 20 witnesses, including a number of psychiatric survivors and advocates who said that embedding mental health within police would not create the change that is needed. “In Vermont, the people who are most likely to be killed by police are those who are experiencing emotional crisis,” said Calvin Moen. He pointed to the national momentum towards divesting from policing and investing in community services. In contrast, “this proposal expands the reach of the police,” he said. Whereas there is a need for “greater efforts to extricate mental health from law enforcement, this proposal would further enmesh them,” Moen said. The “message that is sent here is that mental health is a criminal issue, is a public safety issue … reinforcing that myth that we are dangerous and violent people.” Moen and other witnesses said that placing the money under DMH was preferable to DPS, but that raised problems as well, because the mental health system also presents threats of bodily harm and incarceration in hospitals. There is a “cultural understanding that police can be dangerous,” said Malaika Puffer, but not a (Continued on page 7)
Deadly Force Limited to Last Resort
MONTPELIER — A bill that says police should use deadly force “only as a last resort” to prevent death or serious injury passed the legislature in September. News media commentators have predicted that the governor will veto the bill based on objections by the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, who testified that the legislature was acting too quickly in making a major change in law. Rep. Kimberly Jessup of Middlesex said she co-sponsored the original bill on use of deadly force in January after “three years of feeling incredibly frustrated” about the lack of legislative follow-up after “tragic deaths” of people in a mental health crisis. It first became a focus for her after Nathan Giffin was killed in 2018, and her concerns grew after the death of Mark Johnson in 2019, she said. Both shootings occurred in Montpelier. That bill, however, received little attention until after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in March. National calls for racial justice as a result of the number of Black men
being killed by police led to the legislature’s actions to change Vermont laws. The change in law includes looking at the “totality of the circumstances” to determine whether the force used is objectively reasonable and necessary, which means that the conduct and decisions by the police leading up to the decision to use deadly force will be considered, said Rep. Martin LaLonde of South Burlington, who presented the bill on the House floor. He said the bill makes it clear that deadly force should be used “only as a last resort” and changes the question from “Can you use deadly force?” to “Did you absolutely have to?” The bill passed in the House by a vote of 106-37 and in the Senate on a voice vote. The legislature is no longer in session, so if vetoed, a new bill would have to be brought in January. Several witnesses who testified in support of the bill cited the killing of Ralph (Phil) Grenon by the police in Burlington four years ago as an example of the failure of current law to create accountability in circumstances when police provoke a person into violence.
8-9 The Arts10
The Suicide Prevention Symposium
According to investigations of his death, Grenon was hiding in the shower of his house and was shot after police charged into the bathroom and he came out waving two knives. Police had been responding to reports that he was shouting and bothering neighbors while experiencing a mental health crisis. The bill says that deadly force requires that “an objectively reasonable law enforcement officer in the same situation would conclude that there was no reasonable alternative … that would prevent death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person.” It says deadly force cannot be used against a person if the only danger is a “danger that person poses to himself or herself.” It also requires that “when a law enforcement officer knows that a subject’s conduct is the result of a medical condition, mental impairment, developmental disability … or other factor beyond the subject’s control, the officer shall take that information into account” in determining the appropriate degree of force.
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Force Versus Autonomy