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Police officers are always trained in self-defense but are not likely to have received training in how to deal with a person who has a mental illness. Officers across the nation carry semi-automatic handguns that hold at least 15 rounds. They have batons and handcuffs. Sometimes they carry mace. An officer is taught to use deadly force on anyone within a 17-foot radius who has a weapon and is moving toward him/her. The weapon could be a real gun, a fake gun, an unloaded gun, a bat, a knife, a hammer, or even a screwdriver. Police officers are not taught how to "trick shoot" such as shooting the suspect in the elbow or shooting the suspect's weapon out of his/her hand. The officer will shoot repeatedly for the COM (Center of Mass), the stomach and chest areas, until the person is on the ground.

The police will typically escalate a situation when a suspect refuses to obey an order such as "come here" or "put down the screwdriver." The officers involved will move closer to the suspect and increase the number of orders and even begin to yell the orders. A consumer in this situation might not respond to an officer because he/she is frightened or having trouble processing information. The result can be deadly. Kevin Cerbelli was shot dead by police in Queens in 1999 after displaying a knife and moving toward an officer. Gidone Busch was shot dead by police in Borough Park in 1999 after failing to drop a hammer.

Some police departments in the nation have responded to this situation by giving officers "less-than-lethal" weapons such as tasers and bean-bag shotguns. The idea behind issuing these weapons is that officers may injure a suspect without killing him/her. The problem is that sometimes these weapons do kill and they cannot be used in many street situations, only in standoff situations. A better solution for police departments is to train officers to better detect and understand the symptoms of mental illness. Also, officers need to understand that failure to comply may be due to illness and not open defiance. A police officer would never think of striking a paraplegic for failing to stand up or a deaf person for failure to comply. Neither should they yell at or strike a consumer for not obeying quickly enough.

In the late 1980s, in Memphis, Tennessee, an innovative program was started as a partnership between the Memphis Police Department and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). They called this program Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT). CIT has spread throughout the nation since. Officers spend 40 hours in training with family members, consumers, and professionals so that they can better understand how to deal with them. In the field, CIT officers are allowed to take their time with consumers, to talk with them, to give them their space, and to treat them with respect. This has decreased the number of shootings. Many cities with CIT also have noticed a marked reduction in the number of call-outs for their SWAT teams. By not escalating the situation, CIT officers prevent the situation from getting out of hand and getting someone shot.

When a police officer shoots a suspect, they don't just take the suspect's life, many times the police officer resigns his/her position or develops post-traumatic stress disorder or both. When police officers understand consumers it is a win-win situation.