Phila. Police Draw On Experience To Deal With Mental Health Crises

On a frigid February morning, Vanity Cordero, a Philadelphia police officer, heard a radio call about a man threatening to jump from a bridge. The details sounded familiar. When Cordero arrived, she realized she’d met him months earlier on the same bridge, where she talked him down by engaging him in conversation about his family and bringing him a hot meal, the Associated Press reports. Cordero works in a program focused on de-escalation practices and to provide connections to services as an alternative to arrest and entering the criminal justice system. The unit started as a pilot program in 2022, nearly two years after the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr., who was experiencing a mental health episode when police responded to his mother’s call for help. Studies have shown a person with serious mental illness can be over 10 times more likely to experience use of force during police interactions. After Wallace’s death, the city police invested in programs to respond better to mental health crises — one of dozens of similar initiative across the U.S. What makes Philadelphia’s unit unique is the robust follow-up resources and that most officers on Philadelphia’s team, including Cordero, have personal experiences that made them want to join — family members with mental illness or addictions or previous work with at-risk populations. Cordero grew up living with her uncle, who her mother takes care of amid an intellectual disability that today would be diagnosed as autism. She’s an advocate for better police practices interacting with autistic people. “When I’m on the street ,,, I think of someone being my uncle ... Everyone is a family member to someone,” she said. ”It just gives you a little bit more edge and patience and courteousness to the people that need your help.”

Philadelphia teams, who drive SUVs without police lights and department decals and wear less formal uniforms, are often requested by other officers to assist, and also choose calls to respond to citywide. At the bridge in February, she stayed back until she was needed, but the man spotted her and teased her about not being as tan as she was the last time they saw each other. They laughed about Cordero getting pale over the winter months and she reminded him it was cold outside, especially on that bridge. A few hours later, the man was on his way to a mandatory mental health hold and a clinician would follow up and offer resources to the man’s family. Officers on the team said many calls were about mental health when they were on regular patrol. They usually have just a few minutes to spend on a call before being pulled to the next incident. The team spends more than an hour on average with each person, said Lt. Victoria Casale, who oversees the unit. “In policing, there just isn’t the resources or time to spend hours on calls,” she said. “But we want our officers to spend time with people. We’re not leaving you. We’re trying to solve this problem with you.”