Okay. Are the majority of your clients CBH patients?
Oh, yes, the vast majority, between CBH and the county system.
I'm sorry I missed your testimony, I had to step out for a moment. 120 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684
Does your agency help people to get employment, independent houses, that sort of thing?
No. We primarily provide outpatient services -- excuse me, I have a cold -- to children and adults, but we're not a vocational program.
Do you deal with people with schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia, et cetera?
Do you have a relationship with the family, in this instance, and do you have a well-integrated service where you deal with their thoughts and their feelings about the kind of treatment that is needed and how people should -- and how their clients should live after they leave your treatment center for that day?
Many of our clients live in boarding homes, some of them live in residential programs that we provide, some of them go back to personal residence. 121 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 As I indicated earlier, the relationship that we've had with the Police Department has been relatively good, and it's because we've been there for over 30 years, and usually when they come, they know what the difficulty is. In talking with several of the family members, what they reported to me is if the City Delegate is involved, again, if the police know what they're coming into, the response is good. The question is, what would happen if they're not aware of the clinical nature of the client or the degree of illness or disability?
Do you have a relationship with other agencies? When this incident happened to Mr. Brown, we heard that he was a client of Community Council, we heard that he was a client of the Consortium? Do the agencies interact? Would all of you have records on him? Or what's the real deal?
Generally, clients are provided service in a given area based on their address, and I don't remember what Mr. Brown's address is. However, if he lived north of Market 122 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 Street, he would have been a client of Community Council; south of Market, he would have been identified as a client for the Consortium and possibly Horizon House.
Thank you. Sorry to hold you, Sister Mary. Welcome. Thank you, Miss Archer.
Thank you. SISTER MARY SCULLION: Good morning, Councilwoman Blackwell. Again, we're very appreciative of you holding these hearings today because I think that the issues that Mr. Brown's death raises is such an important thing, because so many times, some of these issues just get swept under the carpet, and people experience these things in a very silent way. And so it's -- you know, so that his death will not be in vain, because I think there are many lessons and things that we can do to make changes. And the first thing is, I really just want to underscore Joe Rogers' testimony. And I really hope and believe that with Commissioner 123 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 Timoney, the changes will happen in the Philadelphia Police Department, and that there will be some additional steps taken to have better intervention for people that are mentally ill, given the experience of the police and Project HOME's experience has been that we do work very closely with the police, and we appreciate their efforts, and really, their untold hours and energy, and just deeds beyond, you know, what you would even believe people would do. They just go really out of their way to really help people, you know, in many, many ways, especially Sergeant Taylor. But I do think that there is a lot of frustration out there. And so I think the first thing that we can do is really adopt some form of the Houston, Memphis, model, and I think that's something that this City Council could, you know, really support and help make happen. I think the second thing is that there are many times that both the police service providers and consumers themselves can find themselves in a situation where it is a revolving door, and that that really does nothing but 124 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 shuffle the problem around, that the police might intervene, that the providers might intervene. But because of a lack of placement, you know, places for people to stay or because people do get taken to the hospital and then, for whatever reasons, are discharged back onto the street again, the frustration that that bears for the police, for the consumer, and for family members, I think, you know, there has to be some way of addressing that. But I also think that today, when Mr. Brown died, there was a gentleman on the (unintelligible) at 22nd and St. James Street, and he was there and really in a very, very bad way, but people on that block called and got the outreach teams and the police there to really intervene. It was focused and done. The person did come in, did get treatment, did get a place to stay, and he actually came to the memorial service of Mr. Brown and said, you know, that could have been me. And so I think that many of efforts on the consumers, the Mental Health Association, and yourself to get housing and intervention and 125 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 services for people, you can see that it really does work in many cases. But it's for the cases that it still isn't working for that we have to really, you know, gain that commitment to continue, to make sure that every single person has a place to stay and the treatment and services that they need. And then there were just two other logistical things that I wanted to bring up, because I think you asked them, Councilwoman Blackwell, that the night before Mr. Brown died, the outreach teams did go and do go through the winter months and meet with the Amtrak Police every night. And the Amtrak Police do indicate if there are people that they're especially concerned about or have some, you know, concern about, and that is like a routinized process. So that does happen, that kind of communication. And the other thing is that it really does work when there is a focused effort.
If someone is identified as having a problem or seemingly particularly disturbed and they can call either Mental Health Association or Horizon House, Project HOME, or anybody, and there's a real focus 126 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 to get that person help. That really does work. It's when the person is mainly -- their illness is more quiet or hidden and just comes out when an incident gets kind of out of control that, you know, we see these kinds of problems occurring. So thank you.
If I could follow up with that real quickly. I think that's an excellent point that Sister Mary makes, is that if it's not a crisis, actually, we have in place systems to respond, for the most part. Yes, there are people falling through those systems, and we don't get everybody. But unlike many, many cities, we're probably the best city in terms of our mental health system's ability to outreach and find and deal with people who are having a psychiatric -- or have a psychiatric diagnosis and try to get them and move them into treatment. What happens, where things are falling apart is when that crisis happens. Mr. Brown, as far as I can tell, from what I've talked to people that were involved with him, generally was not a 127 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 person that was threatening to anyone. Mr. Brown, as the family had testified, was somebody who basically had a pretty good demeanor. Something happened that day; we don't know what happened. Something happened that day and he got upset, he got angry, and he began to act out some of that anger. It escalated, the police got involved. It happened so quickly that basically the only person that -- the people that were going to be responding to the situation were the police. Now, we've dealt with the Amtrak Police, and they are interested in the training in Memphis. They've gone down -- the high commander of the Amtrak Police went down just recently to Memphis to take the training. And we really expect that the Amtrak Police are going to institute some sort of a Memphis-Houston model. What we are asking for Police Commissioner Timoney to do -- and if the Council could back us up on this, it would be great -- is to set up a task force, you know, have Sister Mary chair the task force, somebody that Timoney trusts and wants to involve, maybe Commissioner Timoney heads up the task force, to at it what is it that 128 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 we can need to do in this city to improve our ability as a system when we are dependent upon the police in that kind of crisis system to respond to that individual so that we don't end up with somebody being hurt, whether it's a police officer or somebody of the public or the individual themselves. We think that's a pretty simple step to take, and we'd hope you'd back us up on that with the Commissioner.
We have met with the Amtrak folks, and we've referred some of their recommendations over there. They also referred to the Memphis model and they've also created a review mechanism and --
I think one of things that's interesting is that we have so many of the pieces in place, and it would just take a little bit of leadership, and we think we have in Commissioner Timoney someone that has that kind of leadership, but a little bit of leadership to bring those pieces together and with Estelle Richman involved too. We have this leadership pieces, if we can bring those pieces together and 129 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 have relatively quickly in this city in place I think something where other people are going to be talking about the Philadelphia model and not referring to anybody else's model. They'll come and look at our model on how our police handle somebody in crisis in a way that results in a nonviolent solution.
I would hope so. They're also reviewing all of their procedures and policies with regard to their treatment of the mentally ill. And so we do have a statement from them. Again, they said they could not be present here because they have not heard from the District Attorney where they stand on this case. And so legally, they could not be here. Councilman Cohen?
Mr. Rogers, I'd just like to ask you to continue one step further. Dream with us about the task force, let's assume it were in existence. What happened you be suggesting to it?
Well, what they did in Houston, where they've had some similar incidences 130 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 of the police being called in, when someone who had mental illness and ended up with an individual dying, the Commissioner there put together a task force working with the mental health folks and the police folks. And the task force decided to create a model, to create a demonstration. They took one district, and in that district, instituted one of these crisis intervention teams, adapt it and suit it to the problems of Houston, as we would hope whatever gets done would be adapted and suited to Philadelphia. So let's do a demonstration model in one of our districts. Any cost associated with that demonstration model, you know, I bet you dimes to donuts that there's federal money sitting there that we can find. It's probably not going to cost that much. Let's do a demonstration in one of our police districts, see if it works, see what we have to do to adapt, and it make it happen in Philadelphia, make it unique to Philadelphia. And then go from there.
Well, I think -- I think this Council would support that without any question. 131 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 Let me raise one further question. Do you think there has to be revisited the general policies with respect to mental health stating -- saying in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania today, no one can get any kind of institutional care unless that person is a person who was an immediate threat to himself or to somebody else?
'Cause I find in the community, it is extraordinarily difficult to process calls about a child and the child may well be an adult, a child who is threatening, and unless you can prove that within the very last, you know, the last 30 days, that person has threatened somebody, there is no institutional care.
And the only care is if the person is willing to voluntarily submit to care.
And such a person usually feels they don't need any care and refuses to submit voluntarily. So I think that we're 132 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 constantly at risk because there are people who may act unpredictably, we don't know when the illness that they have, when it's not cared for, may result in an unpredictable threat, or what appears to be a threat to someone.
In a situation, this particular incident, as my understanding was, the person was actually committable. The police were called out, the person was making threats. In another situation, not at 30th Street Station, the Philadelphia Police were called out, as at least reported in the paper. This individual -- it may have been a misunderstanding, something may have been happening, but he was not taking his medication, and he was in trouble. Police were called out, and basically the police -- you know, unfortunately, that particular police officer -- and it's not condemning all of the police, but that particular police officer walked away from that situation. You heard earlier the police have the power under a 6 -- I forget the code, it's -- but the police actually have the power to institute petition and commit. And no one overrule them, by 133 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 the way. If they make a commitment, it's not -- you know, it's not done through the Delegate. They take the person down to the hospital, and the person has to be detained in the hospital for 72 hours. We commit a lot of people in this town. We, as somebody talked about -- one of Councilmen talked about scooping people up. We scoop up, you know, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals and involuntarily commit them. The issue for me is not do we have enough commitment going on, but do we have enough commitment to the people. After the person -- I was committed to a hospital and, you know, the insurance ran out. And the next thing, I'm out on the street because I don't have any insurance. It's called "acute reimbursable syndrome." You know, as long as you got money, you know, they're going to treat you; if stop having money, you're cured. And I'm on it on the street. No effort to refer me, no effort to put me into a different program. I wasn't in Philadelphia, but it was another town. But the situation was, I'm on the 134 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 street. I'm not -- you know I have a handful of pills and no money to get any more medication. Well, you know, within three weeks, I was homeless, and I was psychotic. Luckily, I don't get in trouble with the police, I go and hide, but, you know, I could have gotten in trouble with the police if the circumstance happened. This happens time and time again to people. It's not the commitment laws, 'cause we hospitalize somebody, and after they're hospitalized, it's what takes place. Do we have at the resources to really do the follow-up and the commitment to the people, not going around trying to commit people to programs. SISTER MARY SCULLION: But, Councilman Cohen, I'd just like to add one thing. In this task force, though, I think the possibility of in addition to use the model about the intervention with the police, I think it also could be a vehicle where the police could bring their issues where they feel frustrated with the mental health system when it becomes revolving door for them, when they try to assist somebody and then they're back the next day. But maybe it could work both 135 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 ways so that they could also be an advocate for the mental health system to better respond so that they don't have to, you know, be a revolving door.
By the way, our legislators did look at our commitment laws after the Sylvia Seegrist situation, and, you know, wanted to change the 30-day requirement to a 90-day requirement and did all of that basically. And, you know, it's just sort of an interesting aside is that they then also submitted the bill 12 that they had created, it was the Senate Bill 1. As required, they submitted it to a cost allocation, and the cost was so high in relation to what the implications of the bill that they dropped it, they didn't change the law. This was Senator Loper, who's now, I guess "Prisoner Loper." (Laughter.)
But Senator Loper wanted to change the law and wasn't able to change the law because of the cost associated. So a lot of this isn't so much the commitment; it's what it costs to do the kind of services and to do them right. And it's an 136 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 expensive ticket, and it's one of the reasons that I think the legislators and our state kind of walk away from the problem.
You know, it's always too expensive whenever you try to do any real good for folks in the community, but nothing's too expensive for the sports teams.
You know, how anybody could say we don't have the money for the care of mentally ill people, but say $1 billion in tax funds for the stadium is a wise expenditure, I can't understand.
It would cost us about a hundred million, is what they came up with was the cost of changing the commitment law 'cause of expanded numbers of hospitalizations and having to do the outreach and stuff, and it was about 100 million. You know, you couldn't even build first base with that, could you?
Well, and the Mayor apparently says we can't afford -- we don't have enough money to take care of City Hall, but we can 137 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 build these great palaces, you know, for the sports teams. But you, Mr. Rogers, are a man of unusual compassion. To see you speak so well of the police in view of your own treatment during the Republican National Convention. (Laughter.)
I was hoping somebody would not bring that up. Thank you, Councilman. Well, you know, the reality is, I've seen the police working with people with mental illness, I have been a mentally ill on the streets with the police responding to my own personal problem. For the most part, the police actually have great compassion when it comes to people with mental illness; maybe they don't for Republican demonstrators, people demonstrating around the Republican Convention, but when comes to the mentally ill, for the most part, we've got a good police force. What we need to is to give 'em the tools, to give 'em the ability to really get into this problem and work and professionalize their 138 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 response to this problem.
Sister Mary, do you have records of when you have to call the police for your clients? SISTER MARY SCULLION: Yes, yes.
And my last question is, do you have any interaction with the Special Services District in Center City? SISTER MARY SCULLION: Yes, we do have interaction, both with the Philadelphia Police and the Center City District.
Okay. How does the Center City District interact with you? SISTER MARY SCULLION: They would call. If see they see someone that's in need of assistance, they would call us and ask us to respond to that person. And then, you know, if businesses call them, they might have them call us. So we interact with them fairly frequently.
Thank you, Mr. Rogers. Thank you Sister, Mary thank you.
Thank you. We really 139 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 appreciate it.
Thank you all. (Break taken.) - - - (Proceedings resume.)
Okay, could we have Jane Silverman, Hector Soto, someone representing Reverend Wells, Lloyd Michael Carpenter, and Brenda Cooper-Cutts. (Witnesses come forward.)
Hector, could you summarize? Because you have a long statement. We'll make it a part of the record. Could you more or less give us the overview and the substantive parts of your testimony that we should be concerned about as we write the report.
Surely. Obviously I will submit this as part of the record in its totality. I think the main point is we think there's an interim step that can be taken and maybe needs to be taken. If you look at the directive that controls how police officers interact --
136. If you look at Directive 136 and how that is set up and directs police officers to interact with the mentally ill, the very first statement is: "Police personnel shall take into custody and transport to the nearest CRC location any person who appears to be. . ." et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I just want to contrast that with the counterpart in New York City, in the New York City Police Department, where the issue is not taking the person into custody, but the issue is to reach a resolution, hopefully a non-lethal resolution without the use of force or a minimal use of force to resolve the problem.
When you say "resolution," that means taking him to some treatment center or to --
It could be either one. In some instances, it's neither. In New York City, for example, the issue is not to take the person into custody. It is an option that exists. The other, I think, significant change between the policy that exists under 136 and the New York City guidelines is that it's mandatory 141 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 under the New York City guidelines that a supervisor be called at the first instance. Any responding officer to a crisis situation has to create a safety zone in New York City, and that safety zone includes enough distance -- should have distance in it that supersedes whatever the effective range of any weapon that the person may have, with the exclusion of firearms. So if it's a knife, a club or something, the police officer is to, in effect, retreat to a safe distance, call a supervisor. The issue as to how the person is going to be taken into custody, I think, is made by the supervisor. I think this is significant orientation --
In Mr. Greenwald's situation that was explained by Mr. Rogers later, Mr. Greenwald was said to have a knife. In a New York scenario, a safety zone between -- and it was in his backyard. A safety zone between Mr. Greenwald, the backyard and the policeman and the officer would have established.
Would have been established in the first instance. Supervisors called and 142 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 supervisors would have determined and directed how that situation would have played out. I think it's just again -- and again, I think these are issues of training and upgrading as opposed to major training, although I do think that the models that have been talked about, the Tennessee, Memphis model, I think, you know, has some very good potential and is something that needs to be look into in a very serious way. But even with -- we can create some changes. One of the police officers that was here testified about creating what he called "the sterile zone," but that's not in Directive 136, and it's not -- assuming that that's what people are being trained on, it's not something that's being given to police officers in the first instance. We also have -- in the New York City guidelines, for instance, there are -- there is a -- there's information, specific information that says that the destruction of property is not necessarily a threat of imminent harm to anyone, to the person or -- so, I mean, there's language in the directive and the guidelines that tries to 143 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 find --
In Mr. Brown's case, that he was said to be throwing chairs around and destroying property. Within that directive, that deadly force would not have ensued at that point.
And that's just making my guess but, again, I'm not there and I'm not going to seconds-guess.
But I will say this: I think that the to the extent where we have -- at least it exists in New York City, it's a lot more specific, a lot more detailed, and has a lot more instructions dealing with the issue of when and what type of force can be used, I think that that at least serves as a basis for looking at 136 here in Philadelphia and deciding whether 136 needs revisions, needs a change of orientation. And then making changes in the training of the police officers, which I think has to be a kind of training that's a blended training, that is part police science, criminal justice, and the other 144 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 part has to do with mental health professionalism and treating and dealing with someone who's a mental health person. I also want to point out, there's a lot of confusion in terms, which I think is significant. People use all kinds of terms -- emotionally disturbed person, psychologically disturbed person, psychologically impaired, a mentally ill person. I think how you characterize a person that you're dealing with also, I think, sets up a kind of mindset and perspective on how that thing will -- how that situation will resolve itself. So I think creating terms that are neutral, creating terms that will indicate to all parties that this is a situation that is not, as you indicated, one that's being motivated necessarily by criminal intent on the part of individual but is something that may be medical, something that may be a temporary emotional problem, and that it should be handled as such, as opposed to someone, Well this is a person who has a knife, and obviously then making the assumption, how are we going to get this knife down? 145 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 Just one other point. The police officers that did testify -- I mean, I'm not sure that the SWAT Team is the best possible team to respond to a situation where you're dealing with a mentally ill person, although, obviously, they have had some success and they have some experience.
Yes, thank you. I asked the same question about the SWAT Team. They are equipped.
With the scenario, the Clothes Pin hostage situation, it sounds like it's excessive, but they're trained, they're climbers, they're agile, they're --
And the SWAT Team doesn't always show up with guns in their hand.
They do other things. 146 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 But just for a second, I read recently that you expressed -- just -- I'm trying to remember exactly the situation.
The Police Advisory Commission's displeasure with some of the decisions that have come from the Police Department -- in other words, the relationship.
Did you express some displeasure with the Police Commissioner?
Can you give us just a quick description of a case similar or close -- how about the case that Councilman Ortiz just described? Did the Police Advisory Commission get involved in that?
No. I mean, what -- no, the Police Advisory Commission did not get involved in the case. The address in the testimony that we've submitted is the fact that -- just two issues. Unless someone comes to us and someone -- family, an advocate representative of someone who has a mental -- who is mentally ill comes to us either 147 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 after the fact or at the time of the incident and brings that to our attention, we do not initiate an investigation.
Would you proactively, if you heard of an incident, can't you proactively involve the Advisory Commission without a complainant?
The way the executive order defines our role, we must have as a threshold a complaint. It could be a third-party complaint, it could be an anonymous complaint to start us off, but we need a complainant, and we have to have a sworn complaint.
So simply, a member of City Council -- I'll use that as an example -- can pick up the phone, call the Police Advisory Commission and just simply ask you to look into a case.
Can you describe your frustration and could you describe a case 148 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 that comes very close to the subject that you have had a difference of opinion with the Police Department?
Well, I think the case that in particular that we are -- that triggered, if you will, the statement of displeasure on the part of the Commission was a case involving -- by the title Gordy Lauber (ph.), and we never got to the merits. It was a case of physical-abuse allegations involving at least two minors, and we never got to the actual substantive allegations. What happened was that we had problems with the police officers coming in and testifying. And the police officers basically refused to provide proper testimony to the questions provided by the Commission members who were on the panel. That triggered a series of events because we also operate under the assumption that the Police Commissioner's directive -- I believe it's 75-98 -- 75-95 of '98, issued by Police Commissioner Timoney, is in effect, and that directive states that police officers who are subpoenaed by the Commission must appear and must testify; and if they refuse to testify, even upon 149 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 the advice of counsel, that they would be subject to discipline. That was read to the police officers, the police officers, under advice of counsel, refused to answer the questions of the Commission members. And that's what triggered it. And an opinion was written on that procedural issue, sent to the Police Commissioner, and requesting discipline for the police officers. It was a nine- or ten-page opinion requesting discipline for the police officers on the basis of their failure to properly testify in violation of the executive order, the Police Commissioner's directive, police regulations. And then it was asked that each of them be suspended for ten days. The Police Commissioner sent back a response saying that he would not discipline the police officers, although he noted why the Commission was so frustrated. And I think that's what triggered the event. That was followed by another opinion, which I'm not going to get into much detail, but which was a very long, ten-page response to an opinion that in its tone and language was, at 150 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 best, disrespectful.
Well, one final question. The police -- we have many police departments, as we now know. We have the Amtrak Police --
The Conrail Police, we have the SEPTA Police, we have the Gas Company Police. If an accusation would be made against a SEPTA police officer, can you investigate that?
We cannot investigate it, but we have had people who have come to us with SEPTA police complaints, we have had Amtrak, Sheriff's Department. We are authorized to take complaints and just refer them out with the authorization of the complainant. So if a person comes in or gets one of our forms, fills it out, we will take that and we will refer it to the appropriate division within SEPTA or the head of the agency.
We have no authority to investigate those complaints. 151 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684
What could be done to give you authority over all police organizations that conduct activity within the County of Philadelphia?
I'm not exactly sure. I think there would be -- I think there is some legal jurisdictional issue whether or not we could, for instance --
There are jurisdictional issues between PHA and the City.
And jurisdictional issues between Amtrak and the City and so on that really would -- the Commission is a part of City government, and as such. Cannot begin to investigate other entities that are not part of within that framework or --
You seem like you're having a difficult time dealing with what you have authority to --
I would be more than happy at some point to talk to the Council about that. 152 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 I think we are understaffed. And so this year, we're going to have about 185 complaints, which is a 200 percent increase over what we had just two years ago, and this has been going up on a steady basis.
And if I may, Councilman, that's part of another hearing, okay? That's part of another hearing. Let's continue.
Could I just -- I'm not going to have an opportunity to testify, but with me today is my chief investigator, William Johnson, and he was prepared to present in a very brief way three cases that we do have active investigations where we think -- or we know at least in one of them that the issue was that the person involved was a mentally ill person but it was not apparent at the outset and does --
I'd like to hear him. Why don't you bring him on. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: My name is William Johnson, the Chief Investigator with the 153 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 Police Advisory Commission. The three cases that Mr. Soto mentioned to you, in examining the criteria under which we were requested to give testimony pertinent to the issue of mental health, we've randomly selected three case files for presentation. Now --
Could you state your name please? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: I'm sorry?
Repeat your name. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: William Johnson. In researching this subject, we discovered that there are complaints filed by their parties on behalf of people with mental or emotional health issues, and these are much more prevalent than what we had realized at the onset of this examination. So additionally, what we endeavored to do was to look at these isolated situations in light of the Philadelphia Police Department's Directive No. 136, which specifically relates to mentally disturbed people and those who have voluntary substance abuse problems. Now, our first case involved an 154 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 African-American male in his mid-30s, who, on a clear summer afternoon, jumped from the East Falls Bridge -- some of you may be familiar with that particular situation. But as a result of that, he drowned while in the presence of numerous City personnel. We were provided a videotape by a local news station depicting a time period of approximately 45 minutes; 30 of those minutes were spent outside, on the bridge, prior to jumping, with the final 10 to 15 minutes actually with the male in the water attempting to tread water at that point, prior to his death. Now, our second cause involves a mentally ill woman.
Were there any police at that point, talking to him? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: There were police personnel on the scene at the time, as well as fire rescue personnel.
Okay. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Our second case 155 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 file involves a mentally ill woman who had recently moved --
And he still drowned. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Yes, he still drowned. So I think, as Mr. Soto mentioned, this is just one of the cases that we are looking into on an ongoing basis right now. As I was mentioning, the second case involved a mentally ill woman who had recently moved into a neighborhood with her husband, who had been caring for her particular needs. After her husband one morning left for work, this woman decided to sit outside, on the lower roof of her residence, to sunbathe. Now, this was something that she had done routinely in the neighborhood where she had previously resided but, obviously, this action alarmed some of her new neighbors, and the authorities were summoned to that particular location. Upon their arrival, they requested that this woman return inside of her residence, to which she complied to their request. But then shortly after, the authorities entered the woman's 156 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 residence through a locked window and proceeded to remove her from her home, breaking out through a locked front door.
Did they have a warrant? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: No warrant. This woman was subsequently committed to a mental hospital until her husband was able to locate her whereabouts and then obtain her release back into his custody. Again, this is a case of --
Let me get this. The Police Department entered her house -- INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Yes.
-- and took her out of her house. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: That's correct.
Committed her to a mental institution. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: That's correct.
Did not inform family. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Did not inform the family, correct. 157 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684
She had a husband. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: That's correct.
The husband resided with her. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Yes, he did.
And how long in between the period of time when the husband found out where she was? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: There were probably some two to three hours from what we understand at this point. The husband was eventually informed of her whereabouts by a neighbor who had observed the entire situation.
But not by the police. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Not by the police, no. 19
And they entered, and did they have any documentation to do this, any legal documentation? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Not from what we've determined thus far. They --
And under what reason did they act? Under what assumption? 158 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: I'm not quite sure what assumption they acted under. From what we understand about the situation, their initial call was for a woman sitting on the roof. They asked her to return inside of the residence, which she did. From there, they entered the residence on their own, through that same window, which had been locked. Took this woman out of her home, through her front door that was locked and actually had to break the lock.
And she had sat on the roof before? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: No. 15
She was just sitting. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Yes. And as I mentioned, this was an activity that she routinely engaged in.
And they (unintelligible) and she went in. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: That's correct.
May I? What if a neighbor -- and we don't know -- communicated to the police that she suggested that she was going 159 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 to jump and the police did what they did because they were protecting her from injury. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: That may very well have happened.
But we don't know -- (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
We don't know today maybe -- you know, but we don't know that the response was precipitated by information that the Police Department received. Fair? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: Fair, mm-hmm, sure. We don't have all the facts currently.
Right. INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: And, again, as I mentioned, this matter is being investigated on an ongoing basis.
Go ahead. Very interesting. The third one? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: The third case involves a mentally-challenged teenage boy, along with his minor sister. While they were on their way to a video store, they were stopped by authorities in a case of mistaken identity. The 160 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 teenage boy who fit the general description of a car thief in the area was handcuffed and questioned by the authorities at that time. The younger sister telephoned the mother, who proceeded to the scene, only to find that her mentally handicapped son had been traumatized by this whole ordeal. The son was eventually released when it was determined that he was not the person that was sought by the police at that time. The mother again, as a result of that, came to our Commission to file a complaint in connection with this incident.
So all of these are under investigation? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: All these are currently under investigation now. And as I mentioned, these are just a few of the growing number of cases that we are receiving at the Commission involving persons with mental or emotion health issues. In connection with our conclusions, commentary, and recommendations regarding these particular files, I think Mr. Soto will have something to say. 161 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684
Was there any attempt to ascertain with any of these individuals -- well, obviously one drowned, but the lady and the young man, by the police, any attempt by the police to ascertain as to their mental stability, and did they call anybody else in? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: At least not from what we've been able to uncover thus far. What we understand about it is that the police were actively in pursuit of a car thief at this particular point in time. This young male fit the general description of the person they were looking for and, therefore, they took him into custody.
Was the young man Latino, black? INVESTIGATOR JOHNSON: He was African-American.
Okay, thank you. INVESTIGATOR WILLIAMS: Sure, thank you.
Yes, my name is Brenda Cooper-Cutts. I supervise Outreach in West and Southwest Philadelphia, and I'll only take a minute about a minute. About two weeks ago, I had a situation where a client had been 302ed. This happened maybe about 10, quarter of 10. It wasn't until, I think, maybe about different phone calls. And, 12 finally, around 4:30, when I had to transport myself, the client, because we were not able to obtain a paddy wagon. Once a person is 302ed, you cannot get -- you can't just transport that person. The issue that I'm having a problem with, when I find people and they're in need of help and I've obtained a 302, you can't get the person transported. From 10 o'clock to 4:30, I think, was a little long if a person is in crisis. That's what I would like to say.
From about quarter 163 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 of until 4:30, I was unable to reach a van to transport a person who was going to jump off a roof. But there was -- transporting that person, once the 302 is approved, you cannot transport the person. So that means that that person was inside a facility all of that time, sitting there with, no help, that we could get 'em to the hospital. The hospital was waiting for them. But you can't transport 'em once there's been a 302. The -- I called the mental health team. They couldn't put their people at risk because the 302 had already run into process. That's what's stopping a lot of people from activating a 302 and just going about their business and saying, Well, we'll let the next person handle it. You have -- we need transportation, at least a van, that once you've identified a 302 and it has been approved, to be able to free up a van even, if it's one van for the whole city, because from a quarter of 10 till 4:30, that's too long to have to put a human being through that type of situation.
That's 164 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 absolutely too long. And certainly we will make that a part of our report and recommendation.
We've been very concerned too about people in crisis. Even those people who are homeless, who come to my office, who don't have anything to eat all day. You know, there's some things we have to -- that aren't -- and they're not even hard things to do; those are things we should be able to resolve.
Thank you very much. Mr. Carpenter would you identify yourself for the record.
My name is Lloyd M. Carpenter. I'm here as a concerned citizen and a family member of a mental health patient. My concerns with the whole mental health system is the deliverance of service. I had a nephew who was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, at the age of 16.
You said you have a nephew who was diagnosed as paranoid 165 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 schizophrenic?
At the age of 16. At the time, we weren't sure exactly what was going on with him because we did notice that his behavior was changing. By the time he got 16, close to 17, he was a senior at Bartram High School and needed two more credits to graduate from high school, but his behavior started changing. And he came home one night and told his grandmother that he shook some man's hand and some electrons from the man's body was transferred to him. And he just started talking irrational. So we convinced him that -- to go over to the Misericordia Crisis Unit, and they took him in there. And from there, he went to the University of Pennsylvania, and that's where he was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. From the University of Pennsylvania, we ended up taking him out of there, because we had some problems with the treatment they were trying to give him. We then sent him to Belmont. He 166 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 stayed at Belmont approximately two months. He was what they call. . what was that word she said. . In other words, he's the kind of person that they said there was going to be -- he was going to in and out, because he was not accepting the fact that he had a mental disorder. To make a long story short, we were in and out of hospitals, back through the crisis. So we went to the University of Pennsylvania, Misericordia, Belmont, Kirk McBride, one up in the Northeast, I think it's call PIC or something, a place up there. Then meanwhile as a family, we're trying to get a handle on some type of treatment. He was assigned to the Consortium up on University Avenue. We convinced him that he needed to go to treatment, so he started to go to treatment. And we began to ask questions to his social worker and the people that was handling him. And we would ask him questions when he would come home as to what happened, what was your treatment, what did you do today? You know, because we wanted to know what treatment he was getting. 167 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 He would tell us he basically sat around and did nothing. He was bored, he was frustrated, you know, but we kept encouraging him, it's going to get better, you have to go to treatment. So on one hand, we were trying to encourage him to stay within the system, but we didn't see anything coming back from the system. So at some point after about six months, I went up there and asked them -- what happened was, he came home one day and he had this new pill, he pulled out these new pills, and I knew it wasn't the medicine that they had prescribed to him. So I asked him, What is that? He said, well, he talked to the doctor and the doctor said that they were going to change his medicine. This medicine that -- it was a new medicine they were going to try to use with him. So I got upset because I figured if they were going to change his medication, they would at least let us know so we seen any changes in behavior in him, we know whether it was the new medicine, whether it was the illness, or whether it was just, you know. So I told him not to take the medicine, that he had to take the medicine 168 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 that was already prescribed. The medicine that they gave him, what they give out at pharmaceuticals when they selling medicine, the samples. These were samples. " Try this pill and start testing, and that's why they wanted him to take that medicine, 'cause at that point, I thought somebody was playing games with him. So I went up there the next day, and I started questioning them about it. And the first thing they told me was due to confidentiality, they don't have to discuss it with me.
And so I went on to try to explain to them, but if he takes this new medicine and we don't know he's taking this new medicine and he gets over to a gun, hypothetically, and kills me, his grandmother, when it could have been avoided just by letting us know that you're changing the medicine, they still stuck to their guns and said all of that was confidentiality. So it got real heated in that discussion with me and the professionals. So they requested a family meeting, and we met with them. 169 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 And as the meeting went on, I didn't do too much talking, I let his grandmother do most of the talking. And his mother was there and I was there. And I raised him since he was 2 years old, so I know my nephew. I know his good side, I know his bad side. I even learned about the illness stuff. So we were sitting there and there was a social worker there. The girl who I thought was the social worker, I come to find out wasn't even a social worker. She was a mental health coordinator. So I asked -- And meanwhile, I had done some investigative work on my own in terms of what services he should be receiving. He should have had a potential care case manager, which he never had, until I brought it up in that meeting. And they basically let us know that they were in the charge of the situation in terms of his treatment. They basically let us know that that they don't have to tell us anything. You know, any questions, you know, they basically made us feel like we didn't have any say-so in terms of a treatment plan. And I just kept explaining -- 170 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 trying to explain to them that the bottom line is this: you have him from to 3, I have him from until the next morning and for the rest of his life. It just fell on deaf ears. Things got worse, he got worse. At one point, he just stopped going up there because he said they can't help him. And it was all downhill after that experience. One of the workers there at one time mentioned, Well, maybe what you need to do is find some residential treatment facilities for him. So I looked into that and I looked around, and because of his case manager, he would have had to do that. He was never stable long enough to get him to the point where he could go to independent living, 'cause at that point, he no longer trusted them, and his trust with us was slipping, and we were the support piece. He began getting violent, okay. One time, he almost attacked a boy on the street -- his brother was with him at the time -- for no 22 reason, and his brother had to restrain him. We've had to 302 him on numerous occasions. Every time we would go to the Consortium for help, they basically told us to 302, him 302 him. Well, we 171 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 knew that continuous 302ing him wasn't solving the problem, that we needed help in getting some kind of handle on him, his illness, and some type of treatment. So when I talked with -- the I talked to his case manager, he had got arrested on a 302, and he was up at the CFCF. So I called his case manager and told him that, you know, he was incarcerated. And his response was, Well, what you want me to do? I have other patients. I said, Well, I would like for you to call up there, tell 'em what medicines he is supposed to be taking, and let me them know that you're the ICM, you are on 24-hour call, and he's that's your client, and that's what they pay you to do. Well, I don't have time, I got 16 other patients. So I called his supervisor, explained it to her. She kind of smoothed it over, and, you know, no one ever called the prison to let them know what medicine he was supposed to have been taking. He was on the mental health unit at that time. When I seen my nephew when he came down 172 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 for little hearing, he was so out of it, I knew at that point that he wasn't getting no treatment, so I had to get him out of there.
So we bailed him out. When he came out that day, we convinced him, me and my mother convinced him, sitting in the car, to go on treatment the same day he came out of prison. He went into treatment for about a week and they decided, no, after five or seven days, he still wouldn't take that medicine, and I just couldn't understand how we can have such control or convince him and they couldn't, and they was supposed to be the professionals. We convinced him to take the needle. When you take the needle, that lasts for like 30 days. He was on the needle at one time to the point where for at least two to three months, he was pretty stable. As a matter of fact, he started going back to school, he was going to try to get those two credits for his high school diploma, signed up for Community College, the whole bit. But I learned that a mental health patient -- he began to believe it was him and not the medicine that was stabilizing him, so he 173 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 didn't want the needle one day. And he said to the doctor, I don't want the needle, I'll take it orally. Now, here's a person whose history shows that he's not taking the medicine orally. We've convinced him, as a family, to go on the needle. Why would you turn around and let him go back to the oral when we all know that he's not going to do it that way? I couldn't understand -- I don't understand that. I couldn't understand it then, I still don't understand it. To me, that's irrational, as a professional. So they took him off the needle. And within what, three weeks, back at crisis level again. And we're constantly fighting them and in a way fighting him, and it was just too much fighting, it was too much fighting. My mother's 73 years old. You know what I mean? His mother is schizophrenic, she's under medication. It was just too much for her. Our fight was the only one that was trying to keep it all together. And to make a long story short, he ended up in the prison system, and they say he hung hisself there.
Say that 174 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 again, Mr. Carpenter?
And they say he hung hisself there. That was the end of story, so to speak. What I'm saying is a lot of this could have been avoided had the Consortium that we were dealing with anyway.
22 years old, 13 a young man, hanged himself in prison. Was he in 14 a mental health unit then? 15
Yeah. Well, see, the first time he got arrested, I had told my parents -- his mother, his mother, that we needed some kind of control. So I did have some kind of plan 175 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 in mind. And I thought if got before a judge and got him before a judge and I could get a court order that someone would need to have some authority over him. Because whatever telling they were him at the Consortium, his whole thing was, ain't nobody telling me what to do. So if I say to him, You need to go to therapy or you need to take your medicine, oh yeah, he could say, Okay, Uncle Mike. Well, when he get up there, if he tell them people they don't have to, they telling him they don't have to do this and we're telling them he has to do certain things, to get hisself healthy again. So they were fighting against us. Everything that we were trying to get him to do, they would tell him he don't have to do it, it's his right. But in the process, we lost all of our rights. And they just wanted us to, I guess, feed him, clothe him, and send him to them. So it became a power struggle, and it was obvious, it was obvious. My mother said, I'm not going back up there dealing with them people 'cause it's not about (unintelligible); it's about control and power. 176 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684
Had he, in fact, caused the death of another person on the street or anything like that?
So he was just generally acting violent in nature.
And that was one of my biggest fears. The second time he got arrested, he struck a man in the street, okay? He was arrested. And my thing with the police was, the police knew that he was a mental health patient. Now, I don't know if they have the power to 302 a person when they know that this is a mental patient and they're acting out. But they took him to 55th and Pine, and I understand that they took him over to the Crisis Unit. The doctors over there said he was okay. They brought him back to 55th and Pine, then processed him and sent him up to CFCF. If an officer knows a person has a history -- and it's not like -- it's not like they don't know -- they didn't know who he was, 'cause 177 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 he was 302ed before, in that same district. So it's a question of when you hit the computer, it can show his history. Why couldn't they have 302ed him that day?
My goodness. A classic example of the system failing all the way around, from mental health to our law enforcement agencies and --
And then when he went to the prison, whoever the doctor was that evaluated him said he was okay, and they stuck him in population. And he once went into population, and the shape he was in at that point, he was in bad shape. He was paranoid, he was schizophrenic, he was dillusionary (sic). I mean, these things I learned by just dealing with him. I knew at that point, once he went into -- once I found out he was in population, I mean, inevitable. My fear was that he was going to hurt somebody. I could have bailed him out to go through this whole cycle again. So the plan was to get him before a judge and we as a family would have some say-so, being that the Consortium didn't want us to have no say-so, maybe a judge would 178 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 have listened to us and helped us. And I did find a facility for him that he could have been of could have went to for the 90 days to months. But by the time I found the 6 facilities and what have you, like I said, we got the phone call on a Sunday, o'clock. 8
When did this 9 happen? What date was this, Mr. Carpenter? 10
My goodness, my goodness. We are absolutely so sorry and so sorry about the -- not only his pain and suffering but that of your entire family. We are so, so sorry.
And some of the things I would like to see changed is -- and like I said, I don't know if the police have the power to 302 mental health patients. And if so, I don't think it should be discretionary when they know it's a 179 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 mental health patient. I think it should be mandated that they do that. Prisons and mental health patients is a bad combination. You're sending a person to their death, 'cause they can't handle that scenario. They're sick, especially if they're acting out. Now, I was reading through the paper one day and I ran across a article in another part of Pennsylvania where they don't even send their mental health patients to prison, even when they're acting out. I think it's in Chester County. But they have a system set up that if a person acts out, okay, the police are called in, that person is taken. And if he's a known mental health patient, his is taken, the records to the hospital. If he's on probation or she, the probation officer is contacted, the doctors are contacted, and they deal with the person from a mental health standpoint, as opposed to a criminal standpoint. And I'm just wondering why we don't have that type of system set up here in Philadelphia.
Thank you so 180 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 much. We will make that a part of our report, the recommendation that the mentally ill patients be hospitalized as opposed to incarcerated and certainly let them know of this case and the tragedy it can cause.
The other thing is, the relationship between agency providers and families. I heard what Commissioner Richman was saying, and it sounds good. Maybe at her level, policy-making is supposed to happen. I'm letting you know that some places, none of those things are happening. We had to learn as we went along. No 15 one told us what a 302 was until we had a crisis, and the cops told us about a 302. We should have knew about what a 302 is, what a 304 is, as the family member, being that he was living with us. In terms of educating families to the illness, there needs to be some mechanism. And like I said, I don't know if all of these things are in place, but if they are in place, they need to be activated, you know. It's not like, you know, we were a family that was not concerned. And I do understand why people end up 181 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 on the streets 'cause what happens is the families get burnt out. If you live with a mental health patient, trust me, it's work hours a day. And 5 what happens is the family usually gets burnt 6 out. If they're not getting the right support 7 from those providers, that family's going to get 8 burnt out. And eventually, that client is going 9 to end up in the street. 10 And I think that's why you have a lot 11 of people out there in the street, because the 12 families are just burnt out. It's not that they 13 don't love their loved ones, none of that. It's 14 just that they know that they're not going to go 15 through that cycle again or run into the 16 confidentiality issue, which I believe that, you 17 know, patients should have some confidentiality, 18 but I also think family members, as their own 19 support piece, should have some rights too and 20 some say-so as to the treatment plan of what is 21 going on and need to be informed. Otherwise, you 22 can't help the person. It takes everyone to help 23 the individual. 24
Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. That was excellent testimony, 182 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 tragic testimony. Again, we're really, really sorry, but we thank you for sharing that with this committee. Thank you very much and God bless. You are the last. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
My name is Otha Brown. You spell my first name O-T-H-A, and the last name is Brown. And I'm here representing Reverend Wells from the One Day at a Time Drug Recovery Program, who could not be here today partly due to his health and also another commitment that he has. And I have just a statement that Reverend Wells wanted entered for this committee. ODAAT is a provider of shelter through its residential treatment program. For the past 17 years, we've provided housing for our clients who are affected with substance abuse.
For 17 years. And many of our clients are dually-diagnosed. 183 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 And Reverend Wells is aware of the need to have a strong relationship with the Police Department and feels that it is a very reliable and supportive police department for our programs. For the past two years, One Day at a Time Program has been a part of the new City Sidewalk Ordinance Program, where we've provided shelter for people for that program as well. We depend on the Police Department to be able to have the proper training and to be able to handle the situation when we call them. Our staff are trained, but they sometimes find themselves in a dangerous situation and they need police support. We've found that the support has been good. And Reverend Wells has done things to reach out to the Police Department. This past Thanksgiving, Deputy Commissioner Silvestri and his men came up to our annual dinner, and they were actively serving our clients their Thanksgiving dinner. And then in turn, this coming Saturday, we are going to have an annual dinner, and we've invited them to come there and we're going to serve them, because they've served 184 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 us when we needed it. But also, we want to emphasize to this committee that we think that it is important for the police to have the proper training to handle these situations because there is a potential for injury to the people who are looking to them for help. And we know that when it comes to a control situation like one of our residential treatment houses or the shelters that we run, it's different from an encounter that's out in the public, which is uncontrolled. But both situations require special skill and sensitivity, and we want to make sure that we let you know that that's very important in handling the people when they most need it. That really concludes what I have to say in regards to this issue.
Thank you very much. Please give Reverend Wells our best wishes, and we certainly thank him and you for all that ODAAT does and has done in the past to provide help to those in need. Councilman Rizzo?
Councilwoman 185 12/13/00 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 000684 Blackwell took the words right out of my mouth. Make sure that Reverend Wells gets my greeting.
Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to testify before this committee? Is there any other member of Council or anyone here who would like to make further comments? (No response.)
Seeing none, this committee will be recessed until January 30th at 10 a.m. Thank you very much. (Adjourned at 1:30 p.m.) - - - 186 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Wednesday, December 13, 2000, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY AND PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES RESOLUTION NO. 000684 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter