Capt. Harvey Powers leads a simulation program at the Richmond Police Department's training academy. (Photo by Sarah Lockwood)
The Richmond Police Department announced Friday that all sworn personnel will be Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) certified within the next two years, in addition to adding the program to the curriculum for new recruits.
“Ten years ago when we started, the RPD was one of the first police departments in the commonwealth to train its officers in crisis intervention,” Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham says in a prepared statement. “So far, we have trained approximately two-thirds of our force and now we will complete the process by training the rest. In addition, we will CIT-train all incoming recruits starting with the next class.”
The CIT program has been in existence within the Richmond Police Department for a decade. During that time, more than 500 sworn personnel have received the crisis training, “but due to attrition rates, there are approximately 485 [of the 547] current officers that have received the training,” says RPD public affairs director Gene Lepley.
According to a statement released by department, the officers who have already been trained are those who “are most likely to be called to crisis situations.”
“One of the challenges we’ve faced is to keep up with attrition within the department,” Durham says in a statement. “That’s why we are constantly hiring and training new officers. CIT is no exception.”
The University of Memphis debuted the CIT curriculum and components — sometimes referred to as the “Memphis Model”— as well as the “CIT Center” with the help of a U.S. Department of Justice grant in 2007.
The program has been recognized by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Association of Suicidology, National Association of People of Color Against Suicide, U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services as the best practice model for law enforcement intervention and interactions with persons experiencing a mental health crisis. Recently, two CIT-certified RPD officers received Bronze Valor Awards from the Retail Merchants Association for saving a man who was threatening suicide.
The 40-hour CIT course covers a variety of issues that relate to people in crisis, including substance abuse, mental illness and suicide prevention. The course incorporates lectures, discussions and role playing.
Through community-based partnerships and de-escalation tactics, CIT officers “effectively divert persons in mental health crisis away from jail and into appropriate mental health settings,” according to the CIT Center at the University of Memphis.
In Richmond, the program is co-operated with the Chesterfield County Police Department, and CIT training classes are held by the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority (RHBA) to provide the de-escalation and mental health crisis intervention training to officers and new recruits. The Henrico County Police Department mandated that officers participate in the training annually beginning in 2015, after an officer-involved shooting and subsequent criminal and civil proceedings.
Part of the RPD’s CIT curriculum involves participating in a MILO (Multiple Interactive Learning Objectives) simulation, which is technology pioneered by the U.S. military, and is used to train police recruits on how to de-escalate situations to mitigate the use of force — and when it is necessary, when and how to apply it.
“Remember, we're not allowed to make mistakes, because if we do, it's on body camera and it'll be commemorated for the rest of our life,” Police Capt. Harvey Powers, a police training instructor who administers the MILO simulation, told Richmond magazine in February. “You will see, quickly, when you're put in a scenario where you have to use deadly force how quickly things happen.”
The public is invited to try the MILO simulation individually or in groups at the RPD training facility near the Virginia Union University campus. At one such event, Powers acknowledged that officers do make mistakes.
“We’ve seen some bad decisions by police officers on video recently, and no cop worth their salt would look at that and try to defend it,” Powers said. “But I would guarantee you in every single one of those situations — not as an excuse, but as an explanation — a lot of those guys were freaking out. And their blood left their brain and they were making really instinctual decisions.”
He said the correlation of novice officers using unnecessary force is usually much higher, whereas veteran officers — those who have worked in law enforcement for five years or longer — are much less likely to react that way.
“Being a police officer is challenging work, so it is critically important that our officers have the training and tools necessary to respond appropriately to any crisis they encounter,” Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said in a statement Friday. “I applaud and appreciate the work of Chief Durham to set this plan in motion and move RPD to 100 percent CIT-certification.”
In recent months, Richmond police have faced mounting scrutiny by grassroots and activist-led coalitions demanding transparency and revised protocol for officers confronting a person in crisis. This followed the high-profile officer-involved shooting of 24-year-old Marcus-David Peters near the Chamberlayne Road exit of Interstate 64/95 on May 14.
Peters was naked and unarmed when shot by 10-year RPD veteran officer Michael Nyantakyi after the officer observed Peters’ Mercury Grand Marquis strike another vehicle near the intersection of North Belvidere and West Franklin streets, forcing the vehicle off the road and into a tree and sign post. The car did not stop, but continued toward the highway where it exited onto I-95 and struck two more vehicles before veering onto a grassy median near the highway.
When Nyantakyi stopped his car near Peters’ vehicle, he instructed the driver to stay in the car; meanwhile, the officer holstered his service weapon in exchange for the yellow taser on his belt – radioing to dispatch the need for immediate back-up and that he was dealing with a potential mental health crisis.
Peters then exited the car and sprinted onto the highway, where he was struck by a vehicle traveling during rush hour and made movements on the ground resembling snow angels before jerking back up and telling Nyantakyi to “Put that Taser down or I’ll kill you.” After Peters continued to approach the officer despite warnings, Nyantakyi discharged the taser, which was ineffective after only one prong pierced Peters’ chest. Less than 10 seconds later, Nyantakyi discharged two shots, which struck Peters at close range in the abdomen. He later succumbed to his wounds at VCU Medical Center.
Peters’ sister, Princess Blanding, has argued Nyantakyi should have waited for backup, used hand-to-hand combat, not approached her brother during or after he began acting erratically on the highway and/or used tools such as a baton or pepper spray after he deployed his Taser, which was ineffective.
When Richmond prosecutors Michael Herring and LaToya Croxton announced on Aug. 31 that Nyantakyi would not be indicted on criminal charges for the lethal use of force against Peters, Blanding rallied numerous local organizations around the hashtags #HelpNotDeath and #JusticeForMarcus.
One of those organizations is the South Side Richmond chapter of New Virginia Majority, a grassroots organization operating throughout the “urban crescent” of the state from the Washington, D.C., suburbs to Hampton Roads, to dismantle systemic hurdles in minority communities. Prior to the Peters incident, organizers called on the RPD to release all data pertaining to stop-and-frisks in the community, and gathering support for a community review board.
Such boards have been successfully implemented in places such as Charlottesville, after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017. The purpose of such an independent, elected board with “subpoena-like power” in Richmond would be to “hold RPD personnel accountable for misconduct and mistreatment of citizens,” according to a petition circulated by the New Virginia Majority chapter last fall.
Since Peters’ death in May, the group has reignited its calls for a review board, as well for the implementation of a potential “court watch” program.
Peters’ death came at a time when law enforcement agencies across the country have been subject to heightened scrutiny with regard to use of force incidents. In the deaths of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Sandra Bland in Texas and Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati, the officers were either acquitted or charges against them dropped — but the civil litigation payout to the families of the deceased in each instance was substantial.
In the 2015 shooting in Henrico, officer Joel Greenway was acquitted — but the shooting victim, Kimberly McNeil, received a $750,000 settlement from the county, in addition to the locality paying $15,000 for Greenway’s legal defense.
In the Peters case, Durham took the unusual step of breaking with departmental policy to release the officer’s body-worn camera footage publicly. According to data from The Washington Post, only 100 of the 987 fatal uses of force recorded across the country in 2017 were captured on camera. As of Dec. 7 this year, the Post data records 937 fatal uses of force in 2018, 17 of which were in Virginia.
Of the 17 incidents recorded in Virginia in 2018, only two — Peters in May, and Juan Markee Jones, a 25-year-old man who was fatally shot in Danville in April — were captured on body-worn camera footage.
