Notice of complaint related to 2023-0194

OF
DATE
SUBMIT
OFFICE OF
POLICE OVERSIGHT
NOTICE OF COMPLAINT
March 10, 2023
ICMS #: 2023-0194
On March 6, 2023, the OPO received an online complaint.
The complainant alleges: I work at a residential mental health treatment center for
adolescents. When one of the clients has a suicide attempt, our protocol is to call the police
(and request a mental health officer) because they have to be transported to the hospital to
talk to a psychiatrist there. On this particular night, one of our clients had a suicide attempt
and three officers arrived. One of the officers was great (I don't know his badge number)
but the other one made the situation a lot worse
). Not only did he
pull me out of the room to scold us for calling the cops ("it doesn't make any sense, its like
if I called the police"), he was rude and aggressive to the client who was already having a
very rough night. The client was sad about the news that she had to go to the hospital and
was pacing around and talking with me about it while we waited for the ambulance. She
was disappointed but completely calm. I could tell the officers were getting overly antsy
with her walking around SO I asked her to sit on the floor with me SO they wouldn't get mad
at her. When I asked her to sit on the floor, she responded with "they can't touch me" which
seemed to set off officer
as he aggressively grabbed her arm & put her into cuffs.
She started bawling and begging for help. It is important to note that this young girl is only
14 years old, under 100 pounds, and was calm and regulated prior to this. She was clearly
not a threat to the officers or in need of being restrained, the officer was simply just
triggered and felt like his position of power was threatened due to the fact that she said he
wasn't going to touch her. I tried to plead with officer
stating that she wasn't a
threat, just a scared girl, and he turned to me and aggressively exclaimed "let me be the
cop and you be the therapist!". I begged him to walk away from the situation and have the
other officer approach, given that officer
was making the whole situation much
much worse. The original, kind officer uncuffed her and helped me to calm her down again.
The client was terrified, sad, and in pain due to the fact that the officer grabbed her arm
with such aggression that her arm was hurting and became very red. Meanwhile, officer
took this time to stand with my coworker, making jokes about me such as "wow I
made a best friend tonight, your coworker loves me" with no remorse for the fact that he
just further traumatized a young girl. When our treatment center has called the police in
the past, we have always had fantastic mental health officers come out to assist.
OF
CITY
OFFICE OF
POLICE OVERSIGHT
FOUNDED
NOTICE OF COMPLAINT
Unfortunately, this officer only made a miserable situation worse and caused this client to
have a terrible experience she will never forget. I'm not sure if officer
is a mental
health officer or he was simply accompanying the mental health officer, but I am writing
this in hopes that he will either not be the one to be sent to mental heath crisis calls or that
he is required to complete more training to gain empathy, skill, and understanding on how
to handle these situations. Thank you SO much for your time and for getting back to me on
this.
Witness:
Also an employee at the treatment center, watched everything that happened and conversed
with the officer after the event.
This notice of complaint is a request for Internal Affairs to initiate an investigation to
determine if the employee conduct is within compliance of APD policy, Civil Service
Rules, and Municipal Civil Service Rules.