PODCAST: What EVERY Cop needs to know about responding to Persons in Crisis with Ernest Stevens | TIR56
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What EVERY Cop needs to know about responding to Persons in Crisis with Ernest Stevens | TIR56
Ernest ‘Ernie’ Stevens
Meet this Weeks Guest: Ernest Stevens
Ernest (Ernie) Stevens is a published author with a #1 best selling book on Amazon titled: Mental Health and De-escalation: A Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals. Ernie was also a contributing author for, Police Mental Barricade.
Ernie was a police officer for 28 years, serving 26 of those years with the San Antonio Police Department where he was a founding member of the Mental Health Unit. Ernie has been featured on the Emmy Award Winning HBO Documentary, Ernie and Joe: Crisis Cops. He has also been featured in NBC’s documentary, A Different Kind of Force. Ernie was interviewed by ABC’s Nightline’s Byron Pitts, and featured on officers trained to respond to mental illness calls. Ernie has been featured in over 27 publications and deemed an expert in Crisis Intervention Training.
He is a graduate of Wayland Baptist University and holds a B.S. degree in Criminal Justice. He is married to his wife Lisa who he attended school with since elementary school. He has two incredible children, Reed and April. Ernie continues to law enforcement agencies around the nation by providing technical assistance and best practice approaches to mental health crisis calls. Ernie currently serves as the deputy director of law enforcement for the Council of State Governments Justice Center.
Show Notes from This Episode
The On The Blue Line Podcast and Community has the mission of Empowering Cops in their personal lives and educating the public on the realities of law enforcement. This law enforcement podcast is focused on providing concepts, ideas, and actionable steps that can make a difference in your life. The morning roll call is a weekly monologue show with Wayne Mulder. The Interview Room podcast is an interview style format hosted by Wayne Mulder.
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CONNECT with Ernest:
· WEBSITE: https://erneststevens.com
· TWITTER: @estevens0845
· LINKEDIN: @Ernest Stevens
BOOKS by Ernest:
· Mental Health & De-Escalation by Ernest Stevens and Nicholas Ruggiero
RESOURCES mentioned:
· MOVIE: Ernie and Joe: Crisis Cops HBO Documentary
· MOVIE: Is There Something Going on at Home? By Deborah Ortiz and Jason Harney
· LINK: 988 Crisis Line
· LINK: The Counsel of State Governments Justice Center
AFTER the episode:
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• VISIT OUR Website: https://www.ontheblueline.com/
• EMAIL me your feedback: Feedback@OnTheBlueLine.com
• Get the eBook, “How the law enforcement makes you cynical and what you can do about it” by Wayne Mulder.
Topics we discuss:
· Mental Health
· Trauma
· Trauma Response
· Crisis Intervention
· Co-Responder
· Self-Care
· Faith
· Christianity
· Service to Others
On The Blue Line was founded and is operated by active-duty law enforcement to fulfill the mission of providing guidance, resources and community for law enforcement officers, first responders, and military personal in their off-duty lives.
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TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE. Please note this is a new service we are offering and there will be spelling, grammar and accuracy issues. This transcription is offered as a convenience to our listeners, but at this time it is not guaranteed to be accurate.
00:00:04:03 - 00:00:07:11
Wayne Mulder
Welcome
00:00:10:17 - 00:00:31:13
Wayne Mulder
Welcome, my friend, to the On the Blue Line podcast with Wayne Mulder. And I'm your host, Wayne Mulder. This is a law enforcement podcast where we discuss topics that will empower you on and off the job. Maybe you're tired, you're frustrated, you're feeling overworked or struggling to balance work and home demands or simply you need some encouragement. Then, my friend, you have come to the right place.
00:00:31:23 - 00:01:00:10
Wayne Mulder
Welcome to the 152nd episode of the podcast. And on today's podcast, an important and very important conversation around mental health and crisis response for law enforcement. If you're just finding us, we have two weekly podcast, the one you are listening to right now is the interview room. So here shortly I'll be introducing a guest and then here I sit down every Thursday at zero 500 and have a different guest from a different walk of life who can offer us something that will benefit either our personal or professional life.
00:01:00:21 - 00:01:18:04
Wayne Mulder
And then the other podcast that comes out on Mondays is called Morning Roll Call, and it's a weekly monologue show where you and I, we sit down, we have a cup of coffee, we discuss the news, maybe some recent events, law enforcement trends and a variety of other topics. That gives you something to consider as you begin your week.
00:01:18:15 - 00:01:54:12
Wayne Mulder
Both shows, this one included, are released on almost all podcast platforms, but they're really geared around video. So be sure to watch on YouTube or on Rumble, and you can always find out more about what we're doing at the Blue line. O-n- on the blue line.com. So this week's guest, before I introduce who he is, I have to warn you, if you are watching on YouTube or Rumble, that as you're watching this video, it's going to get darker and darker and darker to the point where you can barely see the guest at one point.
00:01:54:22 - 00:02:20:19
Wayne Mulder
So neither him nor I have any idea what was going on during the recording of this, that for some reason he became harder and harder and harder to see as he very slowly dissipated into the black. However, it was also recorded on following night, so whatever that tells you, I don't know. However, the guest was earnest or early as he goes by Stephens.
00:02:21:02 - 00:02:50:12
Wayne Mulder
He's a published author. He's got a book out, Mental Health and De-escalation, A Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals. He was the contributing author for Police Mental Barricade, and he was a police officer for 28 years. 26 of those with the San Antonio Police Department, where he was a founding member of the mental health unit. He's been featured on the Emmy Award winning HBO documentary Ernie and Joe Crisis Cops, and he's been featured on NBC's documentary A Different Kind of Force.
00:02:50:22 - 00:03:21:03
Wayne Mulder
And he really they were one of the first ones that really started down this road of crisis intervention, training and dealing with people who were in crisis. So he's got a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. He's married to his wife, Lisa, who he attended school with since the elementary school and has two incredible children. And he continues to assist communities build and program manage multidisciplinary response teams, pairing a clinician, an officer and a medic together to respond to crisis calls.
00:03:21:09 - 00:03:48:04
Wayne Mulder
And he currently works with the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council, as well as the as well as being a crisis response and resiliency manager. So I know that was a mouthful. However, Ernie is a great guy. He's someone I actually wanted to have on the show from the very beginning of this in 2019, after seeing that documented crisis Cops, which if you haven't seen it and you are in law enforcement, and especially if you do anything in the mental health space, I highly, highly encourage you to look at it.
00:03:48:04 - 00:04:04:08
Wayne Mulder
Or if you're an administrator and you're hearing all these buzzwords and you're thinking, Wow, I want to do something, I really encourage you to watch it. And as we go through this interview, you're going to hear a lot of those type questions is kind of what worked, what did it and what his thoughts are as far as that goes.
00:04:04:08 - 00:04:13:11
Wayne Mulder
So without taking any more time, here's this week's guest, Ernie Stephens. Well, Ernie, welcome to the show.
00:04:14:01 - 00:04:15:09
Ernest Stevens
Thank you. I appreciate you having me.
00:04:15:21 - 00:04:24:14
Wayne Mulder
Absolutely. I've been following you for a while on Twitter, and I'm glad we finally had the chance to meet sort of in person, I guess, the electronic version of in person.
00:04:25:11 - 00:04:30:14
Ernest Stevens
Yes, likewise. I've been following your work as well and appreciate what you do with your platform.
00:04:30:14 - 00:04:36:11
Wayne Mulder
Thank you. I really appreciate that. Well, let's start simple as I like to do. Coffee or tea, Ernie?
00:04:36:23 - 00:04:38:09
Ernest Stevens
Oh, coffee all day long.
00:04:39:08 - 00:04:41:21
Wayne Mulder
How are you? Are these guys You got to add some things to it or.
00:04:41:22 - 00:04:46:07
Ernest Stevens
No, no, no. Don't put nothing in my Make it hot and leave it alone.
00:04:46:21 - 00:04:53:24
Wayne Mulder
That that's a good answer. And that is what I would expect. All cops to say. But you know what? That isn't the way that. That's why I continue to ask the question.
00:04:54:15 - 00:05:00:13
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, no mass change in there, like drinking almond milk now or something. I'm just kidding.
00:05:00:13 - 00:05:07:20
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Do you have a favorite place to have that drink? Like a place that brings you home?
00:05:07:20 - 00:05:21:07
Ernest Stevens
I enjoyed drinking coffee at home and then also go camping quite a bit in. I've got an RV and sometimes making coffee and just sitting outside, you know, and early in the morning or in the evening when the sun's going down, that's always a good time relaxing.
00:05:21:17 - 00:05:24:17
Wayne Mulder
Absolutely. Do you have a best or worst travel story?
00:05:26:02 - 00:05:48:01
Ernest Stevens
Oh, my gosh. I don't know. Probably best. Some of the best trips I've ever taken, of course, are are all going to be family related. I have had some good business trips as well, though, that relate really back to the documentary. I've met some wonderful people, but time spent with family. Every year we go somewhere for my daughter's birthday.
00:05:48:01 - 00:05:59:17
Ernest Stevens
She kind of gets to pick. She's a little spoiled. So this year I'm looking forward. We're going to out Gulf waters, Alabama. I've never been there. And I hear they've got beautiful beaches and a nice community down there. So I'm looking forward to that.
00:06:00:01 - 00:06:09:16
Wayne Mulder
Very nice. Yeah, that Gulf Coast. I haven't been to that part of Alabama, but the Florida Gulf Coast is amazing. So because I'm down here in the central Florida region, so every once in a while we can get up that way.
00:06:10:06 - 00:06:25:07
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, we've we've actually driven from Texas out to Disney a couple of times and we always stop in Destin and just have the best time there. So it's like we get there and I'm like, Do we really want to keep going on to Orlando or can we just stay here for the the rest of the trip? And it is beautiful.
00:06:25:14 - 00:06:30:24
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. And then you get to Orlando and you realize you should have stayed in Destin. But sorry, that's just my opinion.
00:06:32:09 - 00:06:33:11
Ernest Stevens
You nailed it. You're right.
00:06:34:18 - 00:06:38:19
Wayne Mulder
So let me ask you, do you have a favorite nonfiction modern book?
00:06:40:08 - 00:07:08:16
Ernest Stevens
Favorite nonfiction, believe it or not. I mean, to me, the Bible. I love the Bible. I read it every every day. I do a Bible study with a group of guys every single morning. I also enjoy Andy Harvey's book, Excellence in Policing. I've learned a lot about just how to be a better police officer, a better person. Books that really empower and encourage are books that I like to read.
00:07:08:16 - 00:07:09:06
Ernest Stevens
Nonfiction.
00:07:09:24 - 00:07:27:06
Wayne Mulder
Very good. Yeah. And I have to look that one up. I've actually never heard of it. Excellence in policing. So I will look that one up and check it out. Well, let's start there. You have the movie poster on the back wall there, Ernie and Joe Crisis Cops. So the listeners, just so they know, when we talk about the documentary, we'll go into a deeper.
00:07:27:06 - 00:07:33:17
Wayne Mulder
But that's what we're referring to. But let's back up a minute and talk about you going into law enforcement because you're retired now. Is that correct?
00:07:34:11 - 00:07:48:10
Ernest Stevens
I am. I retired January well, January of 2021. I retired from law enforcement, but I didn't stay retired very long. The honeydew list kept getting longer and the pace sucked. So I decided to go back, go back to work.
00:07:49:00 - 00:08:03:09
Wayne Mulder
But that is what eventually happens for all of us. I think, especially those that were fortunate enough to retire younger. So let me ask you a question. So where did you start? What brought you into law enforcement originally? What's kind of your origin story?
00:08:03:23 - 00:08:26:02
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, you know, growing up it was just always had draw, you know, towards law enforcement. It seemed like wherever I was working as a kid growing up in my adolescent years, there was always like an off duty officer that was working there and would talk to the officer and get a little insight into what their day to day activity was and the best thing I liked about their stories was, you know, every day was different.
00:08:26:02 - 00:08:45:09
Ernest Stevens
You know, in high school, they offered a law enforcement class. So they I had a great retired San Antonio police detective by the name of Duke Harlow. And that's been a long time ago. And I still have breakfast with him today, believe it or not, the man's in his upper eighties and he was that much of an influence.
00:08:45:09 - 00:09:07:00
Ernest Stevens
So it was people that influence my life and really shine that the nobility of the profession of law enforcement into my life. Because when I was supposed to go on to food service, you know, my parents owned a restaurant, my grandparents owned a restaurant. They were sending me to culinary school. And I was like had just I'm not feeling there's me.
00:09:07:01 - 00:09:08:11
Ernest Stevens
I mean, I love to eat, but.
00:09:09:12 - 00:09:11:07
Wayne Mulder
That's different than being on the other side there.
00:09:11:15 - 00:09:19:03
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, I mean, they work too hard, you know, they work seven days a week and I'm like, I need days off. And then I joined law enforcement. I had no days off. So I guess either way.
00:09:19:10 - 00:09:37:17
Wayne Mulder
The irony of it all, that is one thing in the documentary that kind of cracks me up as you guys working off duties all the time. But we'll talk about that here in a minute. But so what roles and positions that you hold during your time? I don't for everybody usually start some sort of patrol function. But what did your career path kind of look like from there?
00:09:37:17 - 00:09:40:11
Wayne Mulder
Before we get to obviously the subject matter of what we're talking about?
00:09:40:19 - 00:10:07:09
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, sure. So originally I started off at a very small agency in in in Texas called Terrell Hills, very small, but very influential neighborhood movie stars, basketball players, you know, lived in this in this in their small little city. So it was very customer service oriented in mindset. But I was 21 years old. Just getting started in that town had like 5000 people in it.
00:10:07:09 - 00:10:30:22
Ernest Stevens
So I lasted about two years there, which I actually enjoyed my time, because even in patrol in these smaller agencies, you get to fulfill a lot of the job needs that you don't in a larger agency, right? For example, I learn how to do my own fingerprinting, photographing scenes, casting a molds if I needed to cast a mold.
00:10:31:16 - 00:10:50:17
Ernest Stevens
When I transferred and joined the San Antonio Police Academy a few years later, you just get on the mike and say, Hey, start me evidence technician out here to handle all this, right? And then you move on to the next call. So I spent a couple of years at a smaller agency, went to San Antonio. When I got to San Antonio, just like you said, started out in patrol.
00:10:51:11 - 00:11:10:17
Ernest Stevens
I then became a field training officer after about five years, which is fairly early on in a career in a large agency, because my field training officer had almost 30 years on. So I got picked fairly early in my career. I always was hustled to all the calls, really tried to put 100% effort into all of them, and my supervisor saw that.
00:11:10:17 - 00:11:27:15
Ernest Stevens
So I got sent to after school, did did that for a few years, and then I went to the DWI task force, spent almost three years working DWI, and then went to the tactical response unit, which is our our gang unit. They just renamed it every now and then to something.
00:11:27:15 - 00:11:28:01
Wayne Mulder
As they.
00:11:28:01 - 00:11:29:15
Ernest Stevens
All do. As they all do.
00:11:29:15 - 00:11:30:19
Wayne Mulder
So every agency does that.
00:11:31:14 - 00:11:47:09
Ernest Stevens
Yes, I spent some time in the gang unit and then after almost 15 years on, the department helped create and establish the very first mental health unit for the San Antonio Police Department. And that's where I spent my last 13 years retired, brought out almost 28 years.
00:11:47:24 - 00:11:55:02
Wayne Mulder
Did you go to city first before you guys ended up creating the mental health unit or which is the chicken and which is the egg for you?
00:11:55:11 - 00:12:16:11
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, for sure. So the San Antonio Police Department did not have a mental health unit. In fact, in my time in the academy back in the early nineties, they didn't train us on crisis intervention. There was no this is the protocol of how to handle a mental health crisis call. I never got any of that. It was what you learned from other officers when you got out.
00:12:17:07 - 00:12:44:23
Ernest Stevens
They didn't teach us how to fill out the involuntary commitment form. Never seen one before, you know. So in 2003, while I was working with the gang unit, there was a call for a school to go to. And it just so happened to be my day off and my partner signed me up for this crisis intervention training, which was okay, because when you work nights, you know, and you get to go to school for a week, you get to go to a daylight schedule and sleep in your bed at night.
00:12:44:23 - 00:12:46:23
Ernest Stevens
You get a weekend off before the school starts.
00:12:47:10 - 00:12:49:19
Wayne Mulder
Monday, really. But the rest of the week goes pretty good.
00:12:50:04 - 00:13:07:22
Ernest Stevens
Yeah. So who cared? The problem was I cared because when I got back, I found out what the training was about. I had no interest at all in an in go into this training about mental health and de-escalation. And it was because of my own ignorance. I just I didn't know enough about the subject. So it scared me, right.
00:13:07:23 - 00:13:28:02
Ernest Stevens
I was like, I don't want to go there and get embarrassed. I don't you know, I don't really know anything about mental health. So you try to avoid those things. And even on patrol, I really did a disservice to those I was serving because I didn't understand. Right. The true compassion needed and empathy needed to try to connect with somebody that's in a mental health crisis.
00:13:28:02 - 00:13:46:17
Ernest Stevens
So I showed up on Monday dreading it because I'm looking at the schedule, you know, classes on psychopharmacology. I'm like, I can't even see that. We're like, And then there's role plays every day. And I'm like, You have got to be kidding me. Like, this is going to be the worst. And it was it was the worst. It was horrible.
00:13:47:07 - 00:14:13:23
Ernest Stevens
For three days. I just was dragging through. It didn't want to be there. But then on day four, I had my aha moment it happened. It was a member from the community that came in and told her story about her son, that that lives with schizophrenia. And her story was so convicting and so powerful. I just felt like I became part of her family as she was telling the story.
00:14:13:23 - 00:14:32:22
Ernest Stevens
And my heart's breaking for her. And, you know, she's telling these officers, look, you know, I don't want to have to call you all, but I don't have anybody else to call. And I don't know what to do when my son goes into crisis. And there's times that I might have to call the police. And I'm scared that if you show up, my son's going to attack you or scare you.
00:14:33:07 - 00:14:54:16
Ernest Stevens
And there's a good chance that you might shoot and kill my son. But it's what she said next morning that changed my entire career path, she said. But if that happens, it's okay because you have to go home safe to your family. And that was the aha moment I needed because I waited for the class to end and I went up to her and I asked her, I said, You know, Ms..
00:14:54:16 - 00:15:11:21
Ernest Stevens
Owens, why would you say what you said to this group of officers? Why is that okay with you? She goes, Because this is my life. I live this life. You'll never understand. And besides, what are you going to do about it? So I said, You know what? I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do something.
00:15:11:21 - 00:15:33:15
Ernest Stevens
And it's going to start with paying attention from this point forward. And then that Monday, the following Monday, I actually joined the National Alliance for Mental Illness and became a member and dedicated my entire life from that point forward to educating myself and serving the community that that that has to deal day in and day out with their mental health diagnoses and times when they go into crisis.
00:15:33:15 - 00:15:35:11
Ernest Stevens
I hope that I'm the one that gets to respond.
00:15:35:23 - 00:15:48:08
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. So City must not have been in agency class. It was like a regional classes that Wyatt It was kind of separated from what Eventually you guys spearheaded a mental health unit. Is that correct?
00:15:48:18 - 00:16:09:13
Ernest Stevens
Yeah. So what happened was the Houston Police Department came down to San Antonio to teach us this concept, and it and it's kind of it's fluid. It's a 40 hour course if it's based on the Memphis model, but it's tailored to the resources in your community, right? Yeah. So they came down and they they trained us and it was more like a train the trainer course.
00:16:09:21 - 00:16:31:11
Ernest Stevens
And I was so intrigued by this that I took the manual and I went to the supervisor that was actually facilitating the training and said, Can I take this manual? I'll learn more, trust me. Can I add in the resources that we have here and teach everybody on the San Antonio Police Department? Like, I think this needs to be taught to everyone and her face.
00:16:31:11 - 00:16:52:07
Ernest Stevens
Sergeant Lopez, she was looked at me like, Have you lost your mind? Like, what happened to you? Like, aren't you on a gang unit? I go like and I was like, Yeah, but this this affected me. So that's what happened. We got to train the trainer course I took the material, made some changes, updated some slides, and eventually got the okay to to train the entire department.
00:16:52:17 - 00:17:16:05
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. And while we're talking because I guess I'll start here and then I'll segue into kind of where I want to go with the mental health unit. But when it comes to CIT is what I keep saying. But for the listener, that's crisis intervention training if you're not familiar, But for a city when you teach it now, is it my understanding that they actually teach everybody in the agency as well as new hires, like it's part of the actual curriculum is that.
00:17:16:18 - 00:17:39:00
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, So it depends on the agency. I know for Seattle International they really are still under the recommendation that you should train at least 20% of your department, 10 to 20% because they would like for those to volunteer to come to the training because they want to be there and get the training right. And I understand that concept and and I don't disagree with it.
00:17:39:00 - 00:17:56:14
Ernest Stevens
When we were mandated by our chief to teach the entire department to include the cadets, we saw, we saw several things. Number one, the cadets that were trained really enjoyed the training and they said, wow, this is amazing. Like, how do I get on your unit? I might go learn how to write a ticket first, like, right, Yeah.
00:17:57:08 - 00:18:00:19
Wayne Mulder
But then you get hungry or they're hungry. They just think it's perfect time.
00:18:01:05 - 00:18:14:07
Ernest Stevens
But their field training officers would call us up and say, Hey, I, you know, this cadet did a ride along with me the other night and told me about this resource I didn't even know we had like, when can we get some updates from, you know, from y'all? And I'm lucky you got to come through the training, right?
00:18:14:07 - 00:18:34:23
Ernest Stevens
So the cadets found value in it and they were actually helping out field training officers in the event there were mental health calls and they were fresh out of the training. What we also saw and it's common sense right when you're on patrol, you don't have the luxury to get out, get dispatched to a call and then say, no, I don't want that call.
00:18:35:01 - 00:18:57:24
Ernest Stevens
Right. So, hey, call sign head over here to this location for this individual that has bipolar disorder and is punching holes in the wall. Now, I think I'll hold out for, you know, a traffic accident or something. You can't do that. So by training everybody, right. That excuse of I don't know what to do anymore, which was me, was taken away.
00:18:58:23 - 00:19:14:13
Ernest Stevens
And now you become proficient, right? If you take this training series and you can change the outcome to these calls, outcomes where you can actually touch and affect people's lives. Exactly what this job was meant to do in a positive way.
00:19:15:03 - 00:19:30:09
Wayne Mulder
Right now. That's a great way to put it. And that really is the mission of law enforcement in general. And I love why I love city. But let's segway for a minute then. So at some point you were involved in spearheading the actual mental health unit at San Antonio, is that correct?
00:19:30:21 - 00:19:55:23
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, that was not easy. So the training I went to was in 2003, and then we turned around and started actually training all the officers in about 2005. So it took me a couple of years to get the ball rolling, to get the curriculum done and to establish the class and instructors and role players and speakers. So it took a little bit of time and I did advocate for a mental health unit for years, but you'll be surprised.
00:19:55:23 - 00:20:12:17
Ernest Stevens
No, you won't. In law enforcement, you're only allowed to be as smart as your rank, right? So if it's not somebody's idea way up here, it's probably not a real good idea at the time. But yeah, but luckily I was a member of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and it just so happened to be a legislative year.
00:20:12:17 - 00:20:30:08
Ernest Stevens
And the chief came to speak at a breakfast, which we had some legislators in the audience and it was facilitated by NAMI and the President for NAMI went up to the front to welcome everybody and he welcomed the chief and said, Hey, Chief, while I got you here, have you given any consideration about starting a mental health unit?
00:20:30:21 - 00:20:53:00
Ernest Stevens
And I had been begging for years. I'm like, Oh no, like this. I did not put him up to this. Like they're probably going to send me out to the pound, right, and inventory all these red cars now. And the chief, he stood up and he, he walked up to the front. He said, actually we are going to start a pilot project and this was 2008 and Ernie's going to be one of the first officers to run this program.
00:20:53:00 - 00:21:11:22
Ernest Stevens
And and I just sat there because my heart about stopped because then I didn't know what to do next. Like, how do you how do you do this? I'm I wanted it, but now that I'm about to get it, I don't know what to do. So luckily, we have great collaboration in San Antonio with our local mental health authority treatment providers, and everybody was for this.
00:21:11:22 - 00:21:13:22
Ernest Stevens
It was just a homerun from the get go.
00:21:14:10 - 00:21:32:06
Wayne Mulder
It's awesome. And we can jump into that there. The statement you just made, I think is super important. So I'm fortunate to I think I had told you through Twitter or whatever that I actually am involved in a mental health unit at the agency that I'm at. I can't go into a lot of specifics, but they're very forward thinking.
00:21:32:06 - 00:21:53:07
Wayne Mulder
And as such, I think we have 16 detectives. So it's split up between three squads, three heads. So there's three squads, three sergeants, one is a co responder squad. So I say all that to say to those agencies out there that may be listening or people that want to, because sadly sometimes I have to remember that I am in a ecosystem that is not the norm.
00:21:53:24 - 00:22:15:24
Wayne Mulder
I'm very fortunate to be somewhere where we have a lot of resources that a lot of agencies across this country don't, that I learn in having these conversations on a regular basis. So someone out there is listening and they're like, and we'll get further into what it became. But with their thinking about something along the lines of having some sort of mental health unit, how important are having those community resources and having those other partners?
00:22:15:24 - 00:22:19:02
Wayne Mulder
When you talk about creating a mental health unit for an agency.
00:22:19:19 - 00:22:45:18
Ernest Stevens
Well, they're vital for your success, right? I would go and talk to different agencies, you know, because, you know, how do you do this? Like, where do you get started? How do you become sustainable over time? And it really does take a collaborative effort from all your stakeholders in the community, most likely your local mental health authority, because that's going to be, you know, where you get the majority of your staffing when it comes to your clinician, your access to care intake appointments, wraparound services.
00:22:46:07 - 00:23:14:11
Ernest Stevens
And so it is vitally important there needs to be buy in from the top down, right, within law enforcement, within your fire department, your EMS. Right. Because they're all going to the same calls as well. So making sure that you're all on the same page with the training I think is first and foremost. But having the collaboration to come in, because if you're on the field and you're trained and you do a good job and you're ready to divert that person, divert to where?
00:23:14:11 - 00:23:37:17
Ernest Stevens
Right. It's like, Hey, we no longer want to take you to jail and criminalize you for your mental illness, but we need to take you somewhere. So where do we go? And that's where you're that's where your stakeholders come in and they say, hey, bring them to us. You know, we're going to we're going to provide treatment. We're going to provide stabilized vision, and then we're going to provide wraparound services and continuity of care for this patient so they can be productive on the back end of this crisis.
00:23:38:03 - 00:23:49:10
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, And that's super, super, super important. When you guys were forming the unit, what made you decide to did they stay plainclothes or was that just something at that time, or how did that battle end?
00:23:50:04 - 00:24:12:12
Ernest Stevens
So when I was writing this up, I'm like, and I sure want to wear jeans to work every day, and I don't want to drive an unmarked car. So that's how I wrote I mean, I wrote it up that way. I didn't think ever it was going to be approved. But there's there's value into it, right? Everybody. Young you know that the very first use sign of use of force is your mere presence, your uniform showing up.
00:24:12:12 - 00:24:37:08
Ernest Stevens
And there's a good chance that somebody that lives with a mental illness and has ever interacted with police might have have a negative outcome at some point or been treated rudely or poorly. Right. So I thought if we can go in plainclothes in an unmarked car, one is can provide respect and dignity to the patient. But also, I think it's going to be a de-escalate or from the very beginning.
00:24:37:15 - 00:24:57:20
Ernest Stevens
And stats aren't going to lie for me. You know, over 12 years in the unit, 8000 involuntary commitments, I never once had a use of force. And and I really do think that showing up looking like everyday person and connecting with the person and seeing the person and not the problem really played a role in that.
00:24:58:06 - 00:25:25:24
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, I saw it firsthand. Unfortunately, our units are and anyone who's listening who knows me, I'm not asking these questions because I'm trying to pull something, but I saw that firsthand, working in like crimes against persons. So when detectives show up in plainclothes, the response that you get sitting with someone and discussing a case, I compare, you know, in the front seat of a vehicle in plainclothes compared to what someone else's compared to someone else in their full uniform.
00:25:25:24 - 00:25:38:23
Wayne Mulder
And you know, that law enforcement presence, it just makes a huge difference in how that person responds and talks to you, especially when you're talking more sensitive type investigations. So, yeah, I can imagine that that's huge, especially in the mental health space as well.
00:25:39:16 - 00:26:00:18
Ernest Stevens
Well, I mean, and you look at your body language, right, Because when you're in uniform and look at the way the uniforms look now, right. You have these very vests, which mostly the thumbs go underneath when you're talking to somebody for whatever that means. I still don't know what that means for before that it was hands on the taser in your your elbow on your gun, because that's a good resting place for your hands.
00:26:00:23 - 00:26:02:11
Wayne Mulder
I was involved with this one.
00:26:02:19 - 00:26:34:05
Ernest Stevens
That one. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. The choke yourself stance. I don't know. Yeah, I don't get these right, but your body language sends a message. And if you're in uniform with all this outer carry vest and zip ties and everything, shotgun shells now hanging off your your belt, it's intimidating, you know. And I would go to conferences where the consumers were the conference goers and I would do this session called Ask a Cop, and they would be able to ask me whatever they want and they would I never get it, never fail.
00:26:34:06 - 00:26:57:23
Ernest Stevens
Why do you all stand like that? Why do you stand with your hand on a gun and a hand on a taser? And I'm like, It's just a place to rest our arms, you know, our hands. It's, you know, this stuff is heavy. And they're like, well, it's scary, it's aggressive. So I would take that back to the training and we would try to come up with, you know, hands your hands together like hands in a prayer stance or open and inviting to try to change the encounter, to be less aggressive.
00:26:58:10 - 00:27:29:08
Wayne Mulder
Right? No, I think that's I think that's really good. And I think it's really important. Now, it did appear in watching the documentary, which I want to make sure everybody watches Ernie and Joe Crisis Cops. It's available on HBO, and I actually watch on HBO, Max so it is available there you're program include seem to include sections that at some agencies are now separated so in other words that it had peer support and resilience resiliency for officers as well as was that all encompassing as you guys built this out or.
00:27:29:22 - 00:27:53:19
Ernest Stevens
Yeah. So interesting about the peer support program because we had just started that program probably right before the filming of the documentary, and the documentary started filming right around 2016. So it was actually facilitated and run by one of our police psychologists. So it wasn't anybody in command staff and you had to apply to be a member of peer support and come in and interview and say why you wanted to do it.
00:27:53:19 - 00:28:36:03
Ernest Stevens
Why do you think you would be a good fit? So originally I think we had 52 officers on our peer support team and some of the members of the mental health unit were on that team, but not all of them, you know, because it takes a commitment, right? And you have to have boundaries and you have to have specific lived and learned experiences to be able to really connect with another officer that is going through something, whether it's traumatic, maybe they've been involved in something critical, maybe it's a situation at home and we try to match the officer with somebody that's got that type of lived experience with the officer that that's going through some
00:28:36:03 - 00:28:56:17
Ernest Stevens
issues right then, you know, and make this peer connection. So it just happened to be it was captured in the documentary. You know, we had we had some officers get shot, one get killed, and they asked us to reach out at Roll Call. But not everybody wanted to talk to the mental health unit because sometimes they're like, Oh, those guys, you know, but I'll talk to this guy.
00:28:56:17 - 00:29:06:08
Ernest Stevens
He's a peer or this or this female. She's a peer, and I know her and she's good people and I can trust her, right? So it was very valuable to have these peer support programs up and running.
00:29:07:00 - 00:29:17:00
Wayne Mulder
Well, yeah, I can imagine. Has the San Antonio still have it all fall under mental health or has it kind of spread out now you have these different.
00:29:17:19 - 00:29:40:08
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, it's starting to change now. So within the last 15 months, San Antonio Police Department has had seven suicide on their department. Yeah. So now they have really leadership is meeting with city council and other leaderships to try to find a way to look at this issue and say, what do we you know, what what else can be done?
00:29:40:10 - 00:30:06:00
Ernest Stevens
Right? So now they are starting a separate unit of wellness and resiliency, which the mental health unit will support, is my understanding, which also has peer support on back end and now some technology advancement as far as some applications that officers can utilize as well. So some I mean, this has been just a horrible, horrible year with San Antonio, this last 15 months.
00:30:06:09 - 00:30:25:01
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, that is horrible. And I'm so sorry. And we've had we have lost a few. In fact, I talk about it openly as to it's kind of my why for starting this podcast. I'd started it a month later, lost an officer here, but we've only lost a few or two since I started this podcast. But yeah, it's a tragedy that's going on across this country.
00:30:26:03 - 00:30:48:18
Wayne Mulder
We were I was just an able training, active bystander shit for law enforcement. It's been Georgetown University anyway, I'll probably be talking more about it in the future, but that kind of came out of 2020 and it's this idea of if you see something, you know, being willing, no matter what rank you are to say something is kind of to see something, say something within the law enforcement community.
00:30:49:02 - 00:31:10:05
Wayne Mulder
But that being said, one of the gentlemen that was in the class was from Chicago. And that's what the things we're talking about is the high rate of suicides they've had in the last I want to say it was like 12 to 15 months. So it's definitely something that's affecting law enforcement across this country. One of the and I don't know how to ask this question without it being a leading question, so I will just kind of say it, but.
00:31:10:05 - 00:31:12:09
Ernest Stevens
Objection, objection.
00:31:12:09 - 00:31:38:07
Wayne Mulder
Exactly. There's no way to really ask the question without just saying where I'm going with it. But what I think it makes, there's many things, obviously, the training and city, the advanced specialized classes that they go to, working with area providers and those relationships. But probably in my opinion, if you're asking me, well, the things that makes these units so effective, it's having more time to deal with people.
00:31:38:07 - 00:31:46:04
Wayne Mulder
How important do you think that is and do you think that is probably one of the most effective tools when it comes to having an actual mental health squad?
00:31:46:21 - 00:32:03:19
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, you nailed it, right? Because when when our chief mandated that all the officers were going to come through city training, it was a great experience to be able to train all the first responders as they were coming through. Right. Not all of them were bought into it, but by the end of the week, most of them were like, hey, that was some really good training.
00:32:04:14 - 00:32:24:24
Ernest Stevens
The part we missed was middle management, your sergeants and lieutenants, and those are the ones watching time on call, right? Hey, what's taking so long? Let's go, Let's go. And so our officers that we would train would then contact us and say, Hey, I'm trying to do what you said. I'm trying to spend time. It takes time. But my sergeants telling me to hurry up and get back in service.
00:32:25:16 - 00:32:50:20
Ernest Stevens
So we had to go back to command staff and say we need to get the sergeants to come through, you know, they're like, Well, it's going to be a little difficult. You know, I'm like, it needs to happen because, you know, without everybody being on the same page, we're going to have a we have a disconnect. And then what we saw was our dispatchers, when we began to train our dispatchers in city, they were very quick to answer the phone and say police, fire, EMS and then transfer the call.
00:32:50:20 - 00:33:14:22
Ernest Stevens
Oh, they're spending really any time because they're so used to. Once that light starts blinking, a supervisor is going to come over and say, hey, we've got more 911 calls back up, get off this call, transfer it. So we had to backtrack and train call takers and dispatchers and dispatch supervisors, middle management, first line supervisors for to get the real picture of, look, these things take time.
00:33:14:22 - 00:33:30:15
Ernest Stevens
And if you rush them, you're going to miss out on some very important information, intelligence, data collection. And it could cost an officer or somebody in the public their life. If you try to rush these calls, let's pump the brakes, slow down a little bit and know what we're dealing with.
00:33:30:24 - 00:33:54:00
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, because it truly is life and death, whether we're talking the citizen or the law enforcement officer. So, no, that's great. And yeah, I've seen the same thing. So that is really neat to see. Something that made me chuckle a little bit when I was watching the movie was this, and I don't remember exactly the complete scenario, but essentially a call comes out and patrol seems to immediately go call the mental health unit because, you know, this isn't us.
00:33:54:00 - 00:34:02:12
Wayne Mulder
This is a mental health call. It's got to be theirs. So how did you guys end up dealing with that? And that has got to be a universal problem once you have one of these groups.
00:34:03:02 - 00:34:20:03
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, well, at first, you know, we were begging for we were begging for the work because we wanted to show that we were being useful and putting officers back in service quickly. But it's like having one traffic unit, you know, Santiago's got 2 million people, one traffic unit for the highway every time. You know, there's no way they can go to every accident.
00:34:20:03 - 00:34:40:00
Ernest Stevens
Right. So same thing with us. There was no way we could get to every single mental health call. So as the training continued to progress, you know, the calls at the hospitals were a patient would walk in and present suicidal or homicidal or decompensated. We're all they also had to do was show up and right. The involuntary commitment handed to the doctor and leave like reset.
00:34:40:00 - 00:35:01:22
Ernest Stevens
Please continue to do those. Like you don't need us for that. But the ones that are a little bit more complicated, the calls with adolescents, those that have autism, those that maybe you they just take more resources, extremely decompensated, extremely violent. These calls are going to take a lot of your resources, a lot of time. They call us out for those.
00:35:02:13 - 00:35:23:10
Ernest Stevens
Those are the ones that we can spend the time on. And you can get back to in-service and continue those answering those calls for service. So it took a little bit of time, you know, for the officers to, you know, get a get a good understanding of what's a proper called. And there was times, to be honest with you, if we were slow, I would look on the screen, hey, there's a there's one at the hospital.
00:35:23:10 - 00:35:39:00
Ernest Stevens
Let's go take it, big deal and keep the officer in service. They'll take us 15 minutes to go over there and scratch it out and go. So we did really go above and beyond. But I think because we did that, it became the norm and it became very easy for them to get on the radio and and ask for help.
00:35:39:09 - 00:36:06:12
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, that seems to be a universal issue. So they cracked me up. When I saw that, I was like, Oh my goodness, it seems like my world did you guys actually, this is just another curiosity question that's coming to me. Did you guys actually assign like high utilizers or anything? So in other words, if you had a subject that was creating a lot of calls for service for whatever reason and there was a mental health concern, did you guys actually assign that person to a detective or to someone in the mental health unit to follow up with?
00:36:07:02 - 00:36:28:08
Ernest Stevens
Yeah. So in the unit we actually had three clinicians assigned to us from our local mental health authority. So part of their job is to go to the high utilizers, right. Find out why are you calling all the time? Where's the gap in service? Is it an issue with intake is an issue with finding a provider? Is it medication for transportation?
00:36:28:16 - 00:36:50:22
Ernest Stevens
And they also helped us with our fusion center, with our threat mitigations. So they would go out as well to do assessments on threats that would come in through media. So we had access to clinicians. Two of them were licensed professional counselors and one was a licensed social worker, master's level social worker. So we had really good, experienced clinicians that would help us with the high utilizers.
00:36:51:06 - 00:37:16:09
Ernest Stevens
And we even created a specialized program called the Program for Intensive Care Coordination. So we identified and with the assistance of the fire department and our treatment facilities in our hospitals, who the top 100 most involuntarily committed patients were in Bear County. So once we knew who they were and it was easy to find out, we started kind of a task force.
00:37:16:09 - 00:37:45:03
Ernest Stevens
The hospitals put money into a pot, 1.5 million. With that money, it created two positions for officers. It was me and another officer, two paramedics from our fire department, five care clinicians and a psychiatrist, a nurse and money for patient needs. Right. Which we could use for medications, transportation, whatever. So the idea now was to go out and contact the patient before the number one call would come in.
00:37:45:03 - 00:38:09:01
Ernest Stevens
So we had several ways we could do that. One is if they showed up at a hospital, we would be notified by the hospital. There's how utilize the patient that y'all are looking for. Just came in. We would head out to the hospital with the clinician and try to do engagement. The second way that we would contact them is when patrol would intercept them out on the street on a call or at a house because those names were flagged.
00:38:09:09 - 00:38:29:21
Ernest Stevens
Any time an officer had to take somebody in voluntarily, they had to call one particular number to find out where to take that person. It was a navigator. So that navigator had a list of all the names so we could find them very, very quickly. And then we would go by their their last known address. So we would usually have the top 100 identified and contacted within the first 30 days.
00:38:30:09 - 00:38:49:19
Ernest Stevens
And we would pre engage the crisis and find out what was the gap, How can we fill that? Sometimes it was we need a complete ID recovery, so I'd have to spend time with the patient finding their Social Security card, their ID card and the birth certificate. From there I could get them into the Salvation Army or help them with food stamps.
00:38:50:12 - 00:39:25:08
Ernest Stevens
We would provide vouchers, taxi vouchers for their doctor's appointments. We could have our medics go out and take medications and give medications out in the field. So what we saw was once we started that program, those top 100, we had an average involuntary commitment of about 6.2 a year, went down to 1.2 a year, which goes to show that if you have somebody in case management, right, and they're on their medications that they're needed, there's a good chance that they're not going to interact with an acute health care system or criminal justice system.
00:39:25:12 - 00:39:27:21
Ernest Stevens
So it's a great, great program paid for itself.
00:39:28:08 - 00:39:44:01
Wayne Mulder
Oh, absolutely. And it's a win win win because like you said, the lesson encounters, the less chance for, you know, things to go bad. And, you know, it's just a win all the way around. That's powerful. Let me ask you another question. And I don't I don't mean put you on spot with this question. I'm just kind of curious.
00:39:44:08 - 00:40:21:06
Wayne Mulder
In the movie, it talks about it how important or I guess I would term it. How would you say that your faith informs this position? And the reason I ask that question is obviously to any listeners who are you know, you don't have a faith that that's not where I'm going with this question. But I do find that people of faith that when you go into this type of situation where you're dealing with people, I know that more and more often throughout my career, I really do think that my faith has helped in interacting with people, going through moments of crisis and so forth in both the law enforcement setting, in the mental health.
00:40:21:06 - 00:40:31:23
Wayne Mulder
And I know that from watching the documentary and then in talking to you that you also are strong, man. Okay. So in what way has that informed your response to these type of cases?
00:40:31:23 - 00:40:52:23
Ernest Stevens
I think it helped me tremendously because if you look at if you look at the two subjects in the film, right. Myself and Joe were different, right? My I have a very strong faith. So to see I'm not going to I'm not going to say he doesn't my my faith takes the place of the trauma that I didn't have growing up that he had.
00:40:53:07 - 00:41:22:08
Ernest Stevens
Okay. And I think that's important. He was able to connect with people because of his the way he grew up. He grew up with family violence, sexual trauma, went into the military head trauma. Their trauma trauma. All throughout his life, I didn't have that. So where he was able to connect with people through trauma, I was able to connect with people through faith because in faith I'm a Christian.
00:41:22:20 - 00:41:52:01
Ernest Stevens
My faith is foundational based on others serving others. So it didn't matter that I wasn't riddled in my childhood with trauma. What mattered was that my mindset was that I'm going to serve you and give give of me to you because I'm willing to allow that to happen. And I think that's that's what made me that gave me the ability to connect with people where he used kind of a different approach.
00:41:52:05 - 00:41:56:04
Ernest Stevens
And both of them complemented each other so well that we had great outcomes.
00:41:56:22 - 00:42:15:13
Wayne Mulder
I love that. That's a really great answer. And yeah, I can see that and I can see the difference and I really wanna encourage the listener. Definitely check out this documentary. I know if I don't know if all law enforcement officers are the same, but for me it's typically I don't wanna watch another law enforcement movie or you know, I just but this, this is really good.
00:42:15:13 - 00:42:19:11
Wayne Mulder
It's really well done. How did it come into existence now?
00:42:19:11 - 00:42:45:02
Ernest Stevens
Wow. How did Ernie and Joe happen? Man? I still ask myself that. So I'll take you back just a couple of years before that, when we started the unit in 2008, we got a little bit of local press, which led to a young lady by the name of Anne Snyder. She is a journalist with The Atlantic. She came down and did a ride along with us and she wrote an article called Policing with Velvet Gloves.
00:42:45:13 - 00:43:09:14
Ernest Stevens
And, you know, for her, this was like a very strange approach. She's from the north, from the East Coast, up in the northeast. And this was kind of a different approach. Is these cops running around in blue jeans acting like a social worker so that her story comes out. It gets picked up and seen by ABC News and Byron Pitts from Nightline comes out and does a ride along.
00:43:09:14 - 00:43:29:13
Ernest Stevens
And it's one of those ride alongs that you can't make it up like we're kicking doors, doing CPR on people like it was. It was just one of those ride alongs and the ran three times nationally, which was the most ever ran a story because of all the police use of force that was happening against people with mental health diagnoses in a crisis.
00:43:29:21 - 00:43:44:16
Ernest Stevens
So they're trying to show this different type of approach. Well, that story got back to the director, John McCain, who called me one day and said, hey, I'm a filmmaker. I'd like to come down, do a ride along and kind of see what y'all are about. I actually have a friend named John Snyder that wrote this article in The Atlantic.
00:43:45:04 - 00:44:10:16
Ernest Stevens
All right, cool. There's a connection. Come on down. So she shows up, but like, she's got no luck. She's following us with an iPhone man and no sound crew. No film crew. I'm like, What is going on here? Like, what kind of film is this? Is this going to be? Little did I know she's extremely brilliant and she just did not want to really impose herself on our day to day operation.
00:44:10:16 - 00:44:24:23
Ernest Stevens
So she knew after the very first call we went on, she goes, Hey, guys, I'm going to be honest with you. This the way y'all just handled that call. I've never seen anything like this. I want to go ahead and move forward and do this film. And I'm like, okay, like with a real camera, like, is this thing going to do that?
00:44:24:24 - 00:44:45:15
Ernest Stevens
He asked, with a real camera. So three years she filmed. She filmed three years use a local cinematographer and audio engineer out of Austin. They were filmed based out of Austin, so they would it'd be easy for them to come down. And she would fly in from Connecticut for weeks at a time in film for almost three years.
00:44:46:00 - 00:45:06:15
Ernest Stevens
And that's that's how it went. And the film took on a story of its own because we we never really knew what angle it was going to be because what what's sexy, to be honest with you, about two cops from Texas answering mental health calls, like who's who's who's going to watch that? Right. Like, this is not like, come on.
00:45:07:14 - 00:45:38:20
Ernest Stevens
But several things happened, right? Unfortunately, we had several officers involved in some tragic incidents. Right. We had one killed, several shot, three suicides within that time. That happened during the filming. So the the film went from these officers responded mental health calls to a there's a person behind the badge and you need to know who they are as well, which I thought was very important because that at that point the film became about human connection and not about going on a ride along.
00:45:39:00 - 00:45:41:13
Ernest Stevens
And that made up that made the entire difference in this film.
00:45:42:02 - 00:46:01:03
Wayne Mulder
Oh, it absolutely did. And that interaction with I believe her name was Kendra on the Bridge. Yeah, absolutely. Really highlights exactly what you just said, that it shows that human connection. And then, of course, you guys following up with her throughout the film as well. It do you stay in touch Do you know her story is it. Yeah.
00:46:02:10 - 00:46:02:18
Wayne Mulder
Yeah.
00:46:02:18 - 00:46:17:13
Ernest Stevens
We went to lunch. No, no, no. We went to lunch like about a month ago. In fact, the clinician in the film that was with us to check on her, she happened to be in the area when we were having lunch last month, and I called her and I'm like, Oh, let me see what she's up to. She's like, I'm just around the corner.
00:46:17:13 - 00:46:43:00
Ernest Stevens
So we kind of had like a little reunion having lunch. So she, of course, like life up and down, right? She's had some good days and bad days, but for the most part, she's very excited about life. She wants to go back and graduate and get her GED. I helped her with her ID recovery and she's excited. She's a I got to get this degree because I just don't want to be a work in a kitchen or restaurant anymore.
00:46:43:00 - 00:46:57:11
Ernest Stevens
I want to be I want to use my mind and be creative and be artistic and so she's she's got a good mindset right now. She seems very healthy, you know, And that smile, I mean, she's got that smile that just melts my heart every time I see her.
00:46:57:20 - 00:47:24:15
Wayne Mulder
Absolutely. Yeah, That's a powerful part in the story. So definitely I won't give away any more on it. I want to make sure that everybody watches that documentary in dealing with people in crisis, that it affects all the law enforcement. And I understand that. But I would say specifically to mental health, behavioral health units, you're going out to these type of, shall we say, high stakes calls or calls that are life and death, as are all calls.
00:47:24:15 - 00:47:44:13
Wayne Mulder
But these obviously, you know, when you're talking somebody on a bridge or I think it's even Joe references the person who actually jumped from a bridge and so forth. So you're going to these type of calls. How important what should be the response from an agency for the officers when they're going to these type of events all the time?
00:47:44:13 - 00:47:51:08
Wayne Mulder
Because I would say that there's probably a higher a higher likelihood of that secondary trauma, if you will.
00:47:52:03 - 00:48:12:21
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, there and there is. So agencies across the nation and hear me leaders and hear me close, right. We need to build these these cultures of wellness within agencies and organizations. Right. There has to be support in place for all officers. I mean, for us, we were going to mental health calls every single day, four or five calls a day for 12 years straight.
00:48:12:21 - 00:48:37:23
Ernest Stevens
Right. Never, never had a break from that. So many completed suicides and watched suicides happen in front of us. That type of psychological trauma. Law enforcement officers really don't have time to decompress those because as soon as that call is finished, as soon as that person jumped that Joe was talking about, it was like, okay, y'all need to get back in service because there's calls holding and no officers available.
00:48:38:18 - 00:48:57:00
Ernest Stevens
And I'm like, hold on me. Can I take a breath? I can. I just we just talked to this guy for 2 hours and he jumped right in front of it, like, can I get a breath? No, you got to go. Right? We're we're in some agencies, especially within fire and EMS, they have the opportunity to do a critical incident stress debrief.
00:48:57:00 - 00:49:21:12
Ernest Stevens
Right. They can close down that station in some places and have other units cover their calls while they kind of debrief this and talk about it. Right. Which is healthy. And think what we're doing now, we're asking clinicians, we're asking civilian clinicians to ride along in these co responder type units for these types of calls. We've never done this before.
00:49:21:12 - 00:49:45:11
Ernest Stevens
We've never asked clinicians to respond to active 911 calls. Now they have gone in responding to calls that come in through a crisis line but not active 911 calls where somebody is actively wanting to jump or shoot themselves and now they're seeing these types of outcomes. So it's not just what are we doing for our officers. It's like, what are we doing for our organization, our agency, our partners that are now responding to these calls?
00:49:45:19 - 00:50:14:14
Ernest Stevens
Now, why don't we mandate that you take a mental health day, you know, once every quarter, why don't we give you that time, why don't we do mandatory psych check ins once a year, whether you want to say anything or not, at least we have somebody that's available. We're 40 new the opportunity when you have those two things, you have a good chance that somebody is going to finally open up and talk and not wait 28 years like I did to retire and then go, Damn, I can't take a breath now.
00:50:15:01 - 00:50:18:15
Ernest Stevens
But wow, I got a lot to process right now.
00:50:18:15 - 00:50:28:17
Wayne Mulder
That's that's very important. Have you seen I know you do things across the country. Have you seen agencies kind of spearheading this or do we still have a long ways to go?
00:50:29:04 - 00:50:46:12
Ernest Stevens
Oh, we do. Yeah, we got a long ways to go. But there's an agency up near Houston now, smaller agency that now part of the benefits package is you get one week of mental health leave. So you can use those days, those five days throughout the year, whenever you want. You want to take off a mental health day, which I think is fantastic.
00:50:46:20 - 00:51:08:00
Ernest Stevens
Some departments require San Antonio does now that if you're involved in a critical incident that you do see psych services and have an opportunity to talk about it. So there are some champions out there. Chief Neill Gang over in Pinole, California, he's a huge proponent of the Asha model, which is a seven pillar approach to building a culture of wellness.
00:51:08:00 - 00:51:35:23
Ernest Stevens
And these are these there are some champions out there, but we need more of them and we need to break the stigma and be able to have this conversation as normally as you and I are talking and without any judgment. That's where we need to get to. And I think I hope we're getting there because we're finally like, your platform is is giving people the opportunity to hear this and know that you're not alone and that there are people that will that will help you.
00:51:35:23 - 00:51:42:03
Ernest Stevens
And I'm one of them. Feel free to reach out. Your platform does that. So these kind of conversations save lives.
00:51:42:22 - 00:51:59:24
Wayne Mulder
Absolutely. And thank you. And yeah, that's that's what it's all about. I was talking to someone last week in a class called Trauma is Behind the Badge. And in that class, a guy came up to me who listens to the podcast and how he had found it. I'm not 100% sure. I think he was through a local academy, but we had this conversation.
00:51:59:24 - 00:52:21:07
Wayne Mulder
It was like, you know, if one person, you know, takes it away, listens, reaches out, whatever, then it's been worth it. And hopefully we can touch a lot more lives than one. But that that's the goal is, at least one. And I think it's doing that. So let me let's talk about your book. So you have a book, Mental Health and De-escalation A Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals.
00:52:21:07 - 00:52:44:17
Ernest Stevens
I do. I so I have that happened. My buddy Nick Rosario, who's my coauthor with this, calls me up one day and he says, Hey, you want to write a book together? And I'm like, I don't know, man. I've never written a book. He's like, Yeah, let's do one on Homicide. I'm like, Homicide. I said, I've worked some homicides, but I'm not like an expert in it.
00:52:44:17 - 00:53:02:10
Ernest Stevens
I'm like, What about mental health? And he's like, Oh, crap, I forgot. Yeah, you're a mental health guy. Let's do mental health. But I'm like, walking right about that. So how do you want to do this? He goes, Well, I kind of wanted to be a training guy, you know, for officers that don't have the opportunity to go to a full 40 hour course that this would be good for.
00:53:02:10 - 00:53:23:05
Ernest Stevens
Right? Because the the average police department, the United States has about 12 officers. Right. So there's a pretty good chance that they're not going to get a good quality safety training. Or if they do, it's, you know, check the box. And and these are diminishing skills. So we wanted to write a book that kept you sharp that really gave you the foundation of what's that training was about.
00:53:23:05 - 00:53:39:07
Ernest Stevens
So I said, All right, I'll write it. I'll get around to it. Well, I got covered and I'm like, Wow, Now I got nothing but time. So I call him. I said, I'm going to start writing. He's like, Oh man, I feel like crap. I got COVID. I'm I got All right, good. So do I. So we never discussed what we were going to write about.
00:53:39:07 - 00:54:00:03
Ernest Stevens
He said, you you write like 50 pages. I'll write 50 and we'll see where it goes. I'm like, All right. Well, he was very generous, first of all, because he wrote it from a supervisor standpoint, because he was a supervisor. So he addressed totally different issues in the book than what I talked about. And then he only wrote like 32 pages and he gave me the next 80 or 90.
00:54:00:08 - 00:54:18:13
Ernest Stevens
He did not have to do that. He's a very humble guy. And my my part of the portion of the book talked about crisis intervention training. What is it? Why do we need it? Why is it important? And then what are the foundational classes? What do you know about the federal law in Tulsa? When you take a patient to a hospital?
00:54:18:20 - 00:54:39:21
Ernest Stevens
These are important things because a hospital may tell you, you know, get out of here. We don't take patients without insurance or or they may do an improper discharge. Well, there's a federal law that protects patients and the officers should know about that, if not for their own family and their own protection. So I wrote about that and it went number one on Amazon, which I could not.
00:54:39:21 - 00:55:03:06
Ernest Stevens
But I'm a who is buying this book. And we were getting messages and it wasn't just first responders, it was nurses and treatment facilities and teachers and single parents. And it was all all different walks of life and saying, Hey, thank you. I learned, you know, something about this. And I know how I think to be a better listener, which makes me a better communicator, which can write de-escalate a crisis.
00:55:03:06 - 00:55:05:04
Ernest Stevens
So it's been it has been fantastic.
00:55:05:15 - 00:55:09:18
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. So you can find it on Amazon and at Ernest Stephens dot com.
00:55:10:04 - 00:55:14:15
Ernest Stevens
Yes. Yes. Yeah you can get a personalized copy earn a Steve INSKEEP and be happy to get one out to you.
00:55:14:22 - 00:55:21:18
Wayne Mulder
Okay. Perfect. So what is next for your mission? I know you said you're back to working. So what is next for you at this point?
00:55:22:03 - 00:55:55:04
Ernest Stevens
Yeah. So I have been blessed. Like whenever one door closes, another great opportunity open. So right now I've been hired as a deputy division director for the council, State Government's law enforcement division. So what all that means is that the Department of Justice under their umbrella is the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and they give out a lot of money in grants for agencies that want to start maybe a front end initiative, a jail diversion program, a co responder unit, a community responder unit.
00:55:55:04 - 00:56:15:20
Ernest Stevens
And the difference between the two, for those that don't know a community responder team would be a clinician and a medic that responds kind of like the Denver Star program. Or you could have a co responder team, which would be a clinician and an officer respond to a mental health crisis call. I touch any and all facets of law enforcement.
00:56:15:20 - 00:56:42:19
Ernest Stevens
The new 98 crisis line, measuring disparities and traffic stops. So I got blessed to be hired to oversee a team that does incredible work to bring these types of opportunities to agencies and departments across all 50 states to try to improve alternative responses to these mental health crises and provide better services both on the front end and on the reentry side of incarceration.
00:56:43:11 - 00:56:49:17
Wayne Mulder
That's great. If anyone wants any information on that, just reach out to attorneys Stephens dot com or.
00:56:50:09 - 00:56:56:10
Ernest Stevens
Yeah, that's fine. You can send it there or if you need more information, you can go to the Council of State Governments Justice Center website.
00:56:56:17 - 00:57:16:14
Wayne Mulder
Okay, I'll be sure to link that up then in the show notes below. Well, I appreciate your time. I got to ask you my one final question that I ask everybody you've given. We've given a lot of great actionable advice, but I like to boil it down to this final question. So what is the one takeaway? The one thing that law enforcement officers can do that's going to make a difference in their personal lives?
00:57:17:11 - 00:57:46:00
Ernest Stevens
Self-care and don't wait, like take it serious and involve your family in the process. There's going to be a great documentary coming out film by Deborah Ortiz and Jason Harney called Is There Something Going On at Home? And it takes the lens of the family for this documentary of first responders. So this is an opportunity for you to as you're if you're just starting out in career, if you're already in it, think about your own self care.
00:57:46:05 - 00:58:09:15
Ernest Stevens
Make sure that your family understands and support you through this career because you're a noble deed, right? You're doing a noble profession. Firefighters, paramedics, doctors, nurses, military, all our veterans, police officers, law enforcement. But man, it takes a toll. It will take a toll on you and you need support. And it's okay because this is a profession that can provide support.
00:58:09:15 - 00:58:18:22
Ernest Stevens
So look after yourself. Take care of yourself and make sure at the same time that your family is a part of this healing process and part of just continuity of care for yourself.
00:58:19:14 - 00:58:35:23
Wayne Mulder
That's great and wonderful advice and something you know, it's it's been neat watching even since only 2019 when I started this podcast, watching the profession evolve. So it's been really neat. Ernie, I greatly appreciate your time. Thank you so much for coming on and I really appreciate it.
00:58:36:18 - 00:58:42:01
Ernest Stevens
My pleasure. Thank you for having me. And I hope you enjoyed has slowly got dark behind me throughout this interview.
00:58:42:01 - 00:58:46:17
Wayne Mulder
Kind of cracked me up. I enjoyed that, actually. Well, thank.
00:58:46:22 - 00:58:52:00
Ernest Stevens
You, my friend. You bet.
00:58:52:00 - 00:59:15:10
Wayne Mulder
So how was that? I hope you enjoyed it. I tell you, it was great having Ernie on. So thank you for watching or listening to another podcast. Every episode has full show notes, links, pictures, transcription of the episode on the website and the blue line dot com. Or if you just scroll down to however you're watching or listening the very first link at the very top.
00:59:15:19 - 00:59:30:14
Wayne Mulder
See, I try to make it simple for you. Click that link, they'll take you to the show notes page and on there pretty much anything more that you would want to know and all the links to everything discussed in every episode is available at that link. So that's all for today. Don't forget that. I will see you next Monday in the morning.
00:59:30:14 - 00:59:49:01
Wayne Mulder
Roll call. I'm going to see you next Thursday in the interview room. But in the meantime, I'll see you out there on the blue line.