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From a story in the March
24, 2006 edition of the Omaha World Herald:
The Omaha metropolitan area soon will have a team of law enforcement
officers on the streets specially trained to recognize and
assist mentally ill people in crisis.
Twenty-two officers - 17 Omaha police and 5 Douglas County
sheriff deputies - are participating in a 40-hour course this
week that will prepare them to become part of a new Crisis
Intervention Team.
In developing a crisis intervention team, the metropolitan
area joins a national trend. The original program was developed
in Memphis, Tenn., in the late 1990s.
Locally, the effort is a collaboration among local government
and law enforcement agencies, area mental health providers
and the National Association for the Mentally Ill.
It's also part of a larger effort to improve the handling
of cases involving the mentally ill, said Brent Bloom, chief
deputy Douglas County attorney.
Crisis intervention teams also can increase public safety.
"Citizens are better served by police who understand
what they're dealing with, and it actually increases officer
safety," he said. "When an officer is trained how
to deal with a person who is in mental health crisis they're
less likely to get in a situation where force is used or force
is used against them."
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