Marty Gordon
Studies show that three out of four mental health-related calls to police involve a suicidal person.
Roughly two in 10 police calls involve a mental health or psychiatric incident. Most of those calls involve suicidal threats, extreme anxiety, abnormal behavior or general psychiatric problems.
A local expert says there is a solution to help law enforcement with those situations, and a program in the New River Valley is a perfect example for others to follow.
New River Valley Community Services (NRVCS) and law enforcement in Montgomery County and the City of Radford now provide “co-response teams” of law enforcement officers and clinicians to respond to individuals in crisis.
Patrick Halpern is the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) coordinator for NRVCS.
“Co-response programs are an effective model for community crisis response that pairs the expertise of crisis intervention team of law enforcement officials and behavioral health professionals in dedicated teams whose primary focus is to respond to behavioral health calls for service,” he said.
The CIT is the first of its kind in the New River Valley and was implemented in response to the Commonwealth’s Marcus Alert System Legislation designed to ensure access to this level of care in communities with populations greater than 40,000 people.
The Marcus Alert System is a legislative initiative in Virginia aimed at improving responses to mental health crises. It was signed into law in late 2020 by Governor Ralph Northam, establishing a framework for collaboration among behavioral health services, law enforcement, and 9-1-1 call centers to better handle such situations.
The legislation is named after Marcus-David Peters, who tragically lost his life during a mental health crisis in 2018. The legislation mandates the development of a crisis system that includes a crisis call center, mobile crisis teams and stabilization centers.
The goal is to ensure that individuals experiencing mental health crises receive appropriate care rather than being treated solely as law enforcement issues, and to reduce the risk of harm during such encounters by involving trained mental health professionals. In addition, the idea is to diminish the role of police in response to behavioral health crises and shift primary response to qualified behavioral health professionals.
All Community Service Boards (CSBs) within the commonwealth are required to implement the CIT program by July 1, 2028.
Approximately $600,000 in funding is provided from the state to every community services board.
Currently, there is one CIT member assigned to each of the law enforcement agencies in Radford and Montgomery County.
Halpern said the teams are highly effective in reducing the volume of behavioral health calls for patrol personnel and lead to higher service engagement for individuals in need of services.
The program was started in 2024, and a report, which goes through June 2026, shows 1,359 calls for services have been responded to by this CIT group. In the numbers provided by NRVCS, 48 percent of those calls resulted in the individual in crisis being stabilized in the community and 29 percent resulted in a referral to the NRVCS or other community-based service.
“In total, the Co-Response Teams spent 1,285 hours on these calls for service which corresponds to time savings for Montgomery County law enforcement agencies,” Halpern pointed out.
People with untreated mental illnesses face significantly higher risk of arrest or severe outcomes during police interactions compared to the general public.
Crisis intervention teams or alternative non-police units, according to Halpern, lower the likelihood of arrest compared to standard, police-only responses.
Local Co-Response Teams provide immediate intervention to individuals with acute behavioral health needs. Teams intervene immediately upon dispatch from 911 to provide crisis intervention and de-escalation, engagement in treatment services, direct connection and transportation to NRVCS 23-hour crisis center, and/or referral to other services.
CIT clinician Ashley Waitkus works with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department and had previous clinician experience in another state before joining NRVCS. The program is very important, according to Waitkus, in reducing the amount of service time law enforcement must spend or had in the past spent on cases associated with mental health.
“Having a trained clinician, there is a better outcome for clients. It helps stabilize clients and has cut down on emergency custody orders, which ordinarily will send them to the hospital and emergency rooms, creating more law enforcement service time,” Waitkus said.
Fewer than half of the U.S. law enforcement agencies have designated mental health units or dedicated specialized personnel, relying instead on general patrol officers with basic crisis intervention training.
Christiansburg Police Chief David Ramsey believes the program is definitely helpful and benefits both officers and the community in making them better trained to deal with people experiencing a mental health crisis.
“It has helped us on a daily basis over the years, and we have a very strong working relationship with NRVCS. That said, I would like to emphasize that this is not anything new for us,” he said.
In the beginning, about 25 years ago, CIT training was optional. For most agencies, only a few officers received it.
“However, upon making captain in 2009, I set a goal of having 100% of our patrol officers trained in CIT. We were able to accomplish that goal over about a three-year period. Since then, we have maintained that level. We send every new hire to CIT training as a priority to ensure that all of our responders have the necessary training to assist community members effectively and safely,” Ramsey said.
So, while the program is new to some agencies, Ramsey said the “new” requirements are something his department had already been doing for years.
“The New River Valley and NRVCS do not get enough credit for always seeming to be one step ahead of the game. The 23-hour crisis center in Radford and the Co-Responder program are cutting-edge programs that have been enormously effective in getting services to the citizens of our community,” Ramsey said.
Halpern hopes the CIT program will be expanded to other localities in the state. Currently, 16 localities operate the program.
Editor’s note: It should be noted individuals who feel they are having a mental health crisis can call 988 instead of 911. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline routes the vast majority of calls to counselors without needing emergency services.
