Officers undergo training on how to approach the mentally ill

SALT LAKE CITY — A suicidal man has a machete to his throat and is holding police at bay.

The question for officers: Should they attempt to defuse the situation by talking to the man or should they prepare to deploy a Taser when they get the chance?

The situation is one of many role-playing training scenarios that have been used by the Salt Lake City Police Department's Crisis Intervention Team for the past several years, aimed at teaching officers how to detect and react to people with possible mental illnesses.

The CIT training has been happening since 2001. But this past week was the first academy since the U.S. Justice Department's Council of State Governments Justice Center earlier this year recognized the Salt Lake Police Department's weeklong training session as one of six in the nation that could serve as learning centers for other law enforcement agencies.

Several high-profile incidents of officers dealing with mentally ill subjects have pushed the topic to the forefront in recent months.

In December, South Jordan police shot and killed a heavily armed man near the LDS Church's Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple after he had already tossed several weapons over the fence onto temple grounds and ran toward a group of people with a loaded shotgun. Members of the man's family told police he had a history of mental illness.

In 2009, Brian Cardall went into cardiac arrest and died after twice being tased by police officers while he was in the midst of a psychotic episode on a highway near Hurricane.

This week, a resolution backed by Duane Cardall, Brian's father, urging law enforcement to undergo CIT training was passed by the Utah Legislature. The bill was approved 68-0 by the House Thursday without debate and now goes to Gov. Gary Herbert's desk. 

"I can only wonder how different the situation would have been had Brian been approached by an officer adequately trained in de-escalating tactics and techniques," Cardall said on Utah's Capitol Hill.

Possibly in part to the recent high-profile cases, organizers of Salt Lake's CIT training said all 40 available spots for this week's academy were filled by law enforcers from across the Wasatch Front sent by their departments to get training on dealing with the mentally ill. There have been sessions in the past that not even half the class was full, according to organizers.

Included in this week's academy were all of the Salt Lake Police Department's newest recruit class, who were required to attend.