SPOKANE, Wash. — A new in-patient program is helping officers better respond to people experiencing a mental illness.
The Spokane Police Department and Eastern State Hospital are implementing the "COP TALK".
COP TALK stands for Community Outreach with Patients through Affirmative Law Enforcement.
The hope is to lower the Spokane police department's rate of use of force against those with mental illness.
"Their only experience is really when we show up and they're in some kind of crisis," Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl said. "So when they think of law enforcement, they think of all the trauma that can go along with that interaction."
COP TALK is expected to improve those interactions by establishing relationships between officers and patients prior to their discharge at Eastern State Hospital.
Carrie Christiansen is a nurse at the hospital. She became a reserve police officer after hearing patients stories about their traumatic interactions with police.
"Almost every patient out here has had some kind of interaction with law enforcement," Christiansen said. "So when I had the opportunity to be a reserve officer, I was like yes--I want to see what's going on and what it's like on the other side."
Not long after she became a reserve officer she started recognizing former patients on the street.
She noticed there was not a lot of communication between the department and the hospital.
One day, Christiansen and Officer Graig Butler came up with the same question, "How cool would it be to have an officer in the hospital?"
So they ran with the idea.
For about three months, Officer Butler spent a few hours every week with patients. All while wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
After building those relationships, he and another officer started teaching a class on interacting with police.
"Patients would say I got a call to my group home and five officers showed up and I was overwhelmed with the number of officers," Butler said. "The best thing about it is I can educate them about why we do that. And at the end you see people go oh that makes so much sense--you didn't want to use force against us."
The long term goal of COP TALK is for all Spokane police officers to learn perspective as well.