MHPS Insp. Brent Secondiak (Photo Courtesy of Colton McKee)

By Chris Brown

Six calls in one day last week

MHPS would support a new model for dealing with mental health calls

Jul 29, 2020 | 12:04 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis in May and other high-profile incidents involving police and mental health sparked calls to divert funds from police toward social services.

It’s a dialogue the Medicine Hat Police Service continues to be supportive of.

Four years ago, city police partnered with Alberta Health Services to have a mental health clinician review calls with police to perform immediate mental health assessments and determine the best course of action.

Since the partnership began police have seen a 50 per cent reduction in suicides and attempted suicides and an eight per cent reduction in total mental health calls.

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But on one day last week, July 20, officers responded to six calls related to mental health and addictions crisis. Most were violent in nature and five resulted in the subject being taken to a medical facility for evaluation. All calls were successfully de-escalated without injury and MHPS Insp. Brent Secondiak says the high number of calls that day is likely a one-off instance.

Secondiak says the AHS program has been great, but he supports the idea of police not responding to mental health calls.

“There’s calls that these people aren’t criminals and that we may not want to go to or shouldn’t have to go to but sometimes there’s no other option,” he says. “So if there’s another model that comes out we’d be glad to look at it but in the interim, I think if we augment what we’re doing now with Canadian Mental Health it’ll be successful.”

Whenever they do attend a call, responding officers are there to be of assistance in whatever way they’re needed.

“Sometimes we’re aware of the people we’re going to speak with that day or sometimes we’re not. It’s really providing support for people who need it,” he said. “But we’re also prepared because sometimes there can be violence or weapons in some of these circumstances so the goal is really to provide support to the person or client who needs it. But again safety is paramount for ourselves and the public.”