Voices haunt police officers during Harford crisis training

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - The voices began as a whisper, barely discernible over the sound of a heartbeat. Then they rose to a clamor, until it was difficult to hear what was real and what wasn’t.

“You are chosen. It’s all right. They have chosen you,” a female voice said.

“You smell bad. You smell disgusting! Stop it now. Stop it stop it stop it,” a male voice insisted.

The voices — whispering, screaming, laughing, cursing — came through headphones, as part of a training exercise for 37 Harford County police officers Tuesday at the Bel Air Fire Department. Organizers hoped the training would help participants empathize with people with mental illness.

“You feel like you’re not even human, and people treat you that way,” said Lorraine Upton, director of Support Peer Independence Now, a support group for people with mental illness.

The voices represented just a small part of the Harford County Office of Mental Health’s four-day crisis intervention program for officers from the Maryland State Police, Harford sheriff’s office, Bel Air, Aberdeen and Havre de Grace. It trains beat cops to recognize and defuse situations involving people who may be mentally ill, impaired by drugs or attempting to harm themselves or others, said Monica Worrell, sheriff’s office spokeswoman.

Wearing the headphones, participants went through a mock emergency room evaluation, a reading test and the tedium of the kids’ games given to adults at some day programs. The toughest assignment, some said: going out into unsuspecting Bel Air businesses to perform everyday tasks while the voices screamed in their ears.

“You could see the look in the teller’s eyes, like her hand was just inching toward the panic button,” said Cpl. Alistair Dais of the Sheriff’s Office, who had to go to Wachovia Securities and ask about retirement plans. “I expected to walk out and see half the Bel Air Police Department, guns drawn.”

“You want to get away from the voices, but you can’t,” said Beth Almond, an emergency room nurse at Harford Memorial Hospital and one of a few non-police officers in the training. “We get people hearing voices in the ER now and then,” she said. “People might make fun of them when they come into the hospital, but this really changes your perspective.”

Cpl. Andy Berryman, a member of the county’s Crisis Negotiation Team, said the training would give help officers “de-escalate” situations before having to call in his team.

County police agencies will continue to work with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Upper Chesapeake Health and Sheppard Pratt to train Patrol Division officers in crisis intervention, Worrell said.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com

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