“I just want to see my daughter, man!”
“You gotta help me.”
“He’s going to violate my probation.”
“I’m not going back to jail!”
Those were just some of things deputies heard Friday morning as they were put through intense role-play scenarios involving someone with mental illness issues.
The scenarios, which followed four days of classroom instruction, included everything from an imposing, angry father demanding to see his daughter at a school to a man holding a knife against his throat in his probation officer’s office.
The training largely involved school resource officers from Lake and Sumter counties and was a joint effort between the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and LifeStream Behavioral Center. It is based largely on a model established in Memphis, Tenn., in 1983 that came about when law enforcement officers and mental health providers started working closely together following the shooting of a mentally ill person.
Throughout the morning Friday, members of LifeStream’s Forensic Community Services Team offered valuable feedback to deputies after each scenario would play out – information they agreed would help them do their jobs better in the future.
“We want to make sure that everyone has the tools they need,” said Lake County Sheriff’s Sgt. Fred Jones, who oversaw the training and played the role of a volatile person with mental health problems in a variety of scenarios. “When I first got into law enforcement, all we had was our gun. But now we have a Taser, so we have options. So the more tools you have, the more options you have to use.”
In heated situations like those that played out Friday morning at the Lake County Emergency Operations Center in Tavares, Jones said it’s essential for deputies to have the knowledge and the ability to diffuse situations quickly.
“They’ve got to be able to de-escalate a situation and take that person for the services they need,” Jones said. “Even if they have to arrest them, let’s just de-escalate the situation first.”
Lake County Deputy Alexander Kilfoyle, a school resource officer at Lake Minneola High School, quickly found himself in a heated scenario with Jones, who was playing the role of an angry father who showed up at a school demanding to see his daughter while screaming his estranged wife and the principal.
“She snatched my heart out of my chest!” Jones yelled, as Kilfoyle remained calm and assessed the situation.
Eventually, Jones demanded to speak with Kilfoyle’s partner, Deputy Robert Holcomb, the school resource officer at Tavares High School. So the two made a smooth transition, with Kilfoyle sliding over to talk to the estranged wife while still keeping a close eye on his partner.
In a very short time, Jones started to calm down and told Holcomb about his mental health issues and the need for medication he can no longer afford.
“It seemed very real and was much like many of the situations I’ve dealt with before,” Kilfoyle said. “But the training really brought to light some new advancements in techniques that we can use in order to dispel issues.”
Holcomb agreed, adding that deputies in schools and on road patrol deal with a variety of custody disputes on a regular basis.
“The most important thing is to get the individual the help that he needs,” Holcomb said. “Everything else will follow that.”
Dep. Lori Bott, who also serves as a school resource officer at Lake Minneola High School, said she took the same class about five years ago. Her job Friday was to play a variety of roles in the scenarios, from the upset estranged wife trying to protect her daughter to a young child who was terrified of having to leave school with her grandfather. Like Kilfoyle, she said this kind of training is really eye-opening, especially when the aspects of mental illness come into play.
“It gives a different perspective,” she said. “It’s just important for us to learn more about how to approach situations that may be out of the norm and things we’ve always assumed were defiance, when they were actually another situation.”
For Sumter County Deputy Josh Greenwood, the school resource officer at South Sumter High School, dealing with an angry father with mental health problems wasn’t a new experience.
“It was very real and I was sweating pretty good,” he said. “But that scenario you just witnessed, that’s happened before. We’ve been called to the office before to deal with situations like that.”
Sumter County Sgt. Michael Ross, a patrol sergeant in The Villages, dealt with the scenario involving the scared grandchild. Ross said he knew “something was going on” regarding the relationship with the grandfather very quickly, but the number one concern was to take care of the child first.
“We want to get the child, make sure she’s secure and safe,” he said, adding that once deputies know what’s going on, they can pick up the grandfather at a different time. “A lot of people don’t understand that. They say, ‘He was right here. You’ve got to do it right now.’ There’s a lot of things investigative-wise that need to happen first.”
As for the training, Ross said it was invaluable.
“You can’t go in yelling and screaming,” he said. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with. A lot of times it’s that cool, calm, collected deputy that comes in and approaches them more calmly.”
Wildwood Middle High School resource officer Dep. Michael Callaway echoed Ross’ sentiments.
“I think every school has students on campus that suffer from mental illness,” said the Sumter County deputy. “This gives us a better understanding of how to deal with them or to try to help them.”
The bottom line, said Lake County Dep. Felisha Aguilar, is that deputies who completed the training learned some valuable tools to help them in dealing with people with a variety of mental health issues.
“The more knowledge we have, the more we talk about it, and the more scenarios we’re put in, the better we can do our jobs,” said the school resource officer at East Ridge Middle School. “I really think it’s about understanding. I wish more people in the community had that same training so they could understand issues the same way we do.”
