Officer mental health—not murder of woman reporting abuse—is topic of Milwaukee committee meeting10/31/2024 By Alexandria Staubach Two noteworthy items appeared on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting of the Milwaukee Common Council’s Committee on Public Safety and Health. One was discussed: mental health services for Milwaukee Police Department officers and encounters with the public where mental health crisis is an issue. One was postponed: MPD changes following the murder of Bobbie Lou Schoeffling, killed by the man she reported as an abuser. The mental health agenda item was raised by Alder Larissa Taylor, who said she was prompted to investigate MPD’s policies by this summer’s fatal police shooting of Sonya Massey, in neighboring Illinois. The Illinois police shooting involved Massey’s mental health, and the responding officer was charged with murder. Conspicuously rescheduled was communication from MPD regarding improvements to policies, training, and practices in the wake of Schoeffling’s death. Schoeffling was murdered by her ex-boyfriend two weeks after her complaints at the District 3 police station were dismissed by an officer. The interaction was recorded by police station cameras, and the officer was recorded calling Schoeffling foul names after she left the building, as documented in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation last spring. The committee’s mental health discussion included an explanation of the department’s policies and procedures to address officer well-being, presented by Heather Hough, MPD chief of staff, and Inspector Eric Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer said mental health is a question of "officer resilience." According to Hough, the department offers “robust wellness services” for officers and staff. “We don’t want our officers to have compassion fatigue," she said. Both Hough and Pfeiffer described a sea change in the years since the department mandated mental health services in “certain situations.” Those services created a “culture shift,” said Hough, and officers are now more “willing to sign up because they recognize that it helps.” Hough and Pfeiffer also discussed police encounters with those experiencing mental health crises. Pfeiffer reported that since 2020 the department typically has dealt with between 7,000 and 8,000 mental health service calls per year. More than 44% of those calls do not result in detention or any significant action by MPD, while 21% result in detention despite efforts to “hopefully provide voluntary options for folks,” Pfeiffer said. MPD Standard Operating Procedure 160 governs officer encounters with those experiencing mental health crisis. The SOP includes several resources available to officers who encounter those experiencing a mental health crisis. For example, the Crisis Assessment Response Team, or “CART,” pairs an officer with a mental health clinician to respond to calls. The CART team is available to officers from 8 a.m. to midnight and has responded to 1,900 calls this year, Pfeiffer said. He added that the team has had just one use of force incident since it deployed in 2013. Pfeiffer and Hough also discussed MPD’s adoption of the ABLE Project (Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement), a Georgetown Law Center program designed to “prepare officers to successfully intervene to prevent harm and to create a law enforcement culture that supports peer intervention.” Pfeiffer said MPD trains its officers to use peer pressure to deescalate and encourage positive encounters. Officers are expected to “say something if they see something.” Hough said MPD Chief Jeffrey Norman considers the training when he evaluates whether to discipline an officer. When an officer witnesses a questionable or unreasonable use of force, Norman asks himself whether it was pre- or post-ABLE, Hough said.
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