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Sensitivity training for police officers dealing with mental health emergencies is imperative. But, special recognition of groups, whether by race, gender, religion, etc., is of the utmost importance. There is a diversity awareness problem in our society.

Special training for police recruits involved with mental health persons is at least 50 years outdated, according to the Deputy Commissioner of Mental Health. He also noted that this is a monumental task and a very costly one. Even with special intervention from advocates and other mental health people-psychiatrists and social workers-we are faced with a difficult task. It would also be a counterproductive undertaking.

I maintain that mental health emergency situations are not criminal emergencies. They are medical emergencies because mental illness is supposed to be a sickness that is treatable. Of course, if a consumer is pointing a knife or a brick, then the police must intervene. That is criminal behavior. What would be the difference if he or she has a diagnosis or not?

Note: The Deputy Commissioner said that a very large percentage of the responses do not result in violence but are resolved by other means, persons taken to psychiatric-emergency units, hospitalizations, etc.).

Police are not mental health personnel, will not and cannot be trained to be so in an effective way.

I would think that if I had a relapse, a person carrying a gun would not be suitable therapy for my illness-it would be inappropriate, and I may not understand what is going on. Furthermore, if I am not in my right mind, I think that I would react adversely to ill treatment.

Sensitivity training should continue on all levels, nothing being excluded.

Most mental health emergency calls do not involve violence (at least the majority that are not reported on television). It is still the stigma that accompanies mental illness that is always the problem. That MAD WAVE of crazy people taking over the streets and endangering the lives of innocent citizens in record numbers-all lies. The police are not faced with a quality of life issue. This is a mental health issue.

Police fight the bad guys. We are not the bad guys. By (seemingly) legal standards, mentally ill persons are not responsible for their actions. This is a prejudice against the ability to ever recover from these illnesses, but, nevertheless is the law in many situations-a double standard.

As we come to understand mental illness on all fronts (clinically diagnosed included), we have to catch-up with new enlightenment and understanding of people being included in their recovery, seen as individuals and not as a diagnosis with an illness. If the police training in the academies is 50 years in the past, then that same thinking behind the training is also behind the times!

The days of the neighborhood cop walking the beat, who knows everybody and everyone knows him or her-is about over. We simply call 911! I don't see police having to treat mental illness, or homelessness for that matter, (and there is a difference between the two). Put the ball in the ballpark first. I would rather the guy with his hand on the trigger sit around eating a donut than to be attending a psych-emergency with a gun at the side.