3/6/17 – 5:03 A.M.

The need for police officers with crisis intervention training continues to grow in Findlay. The Courier reports that in 2007, the department received 48 crisis intervention calls. That number grew to nearly 280 in 2016. Police Sgt Dan Harmon says a crisis intervention call could mean an officer is responding to someone who was reportedly depressed or suicidal, or an officer is responding to another type of call but found that mental illness played a role in the incident

CIT certified officers undergo training to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illnesses, and learn the required skill set to de-escalate a psychiatric crisis. Harmon tells the newspaper, “we teach the officers how to engage a person with a mental illness in a different manner. Our normal police presence doesn’t necessarily work well with someone with mental illness.”

Local police officers and sheriff’s deputies have a new way of showing they’ve completed crisis intervention training. A light blue rectangular pin on an officers uniform means they are CIT certified. The old pin was circular.

MORE: The Courier