Three Officers Honored For Crisis Intervention Work
On December 7, 2015, New Jersey held its first Annual C.I.T. (Crisis Intervention Team) Conference at the Rutgers University Center for Law and Justice. In attendance were representatives of the state Attorney General’s Office, members of law enforcement from state, county, and local agencies, and civilian stakeholders, including members of N.A.M.I. (National Alliance on Mental Illness).
C.I.T. is a program which provides training and resources to police officers when interacting with people with a mental illness. It teaches them to identify and de-escalate a situation and then provide referral services. The purpose is to avoid a confrontation which can often lead to an injury or death to the mentally-ill person or to the police officer.
The Linden Police Department has been a pioneer agency in bringing C.I.T. training to other departments across the county and state, thanks to the cooperation and support of the Union County Prosecutor’s Office and both former and present county prosecutors.
During this conference, three Linden officers were honored for dealing with a mentally unbalanced man who, on two separate occasions, had barricaded himself into an apartment, and armed with a knife, had threatened to kill himself as well as any law enforcement officers who approached him. The training provided to these officers resulted in the man obtaining mental health treatment at a local hospital and no injury to any of the responding police officers.
(above l-r) Field Training Officers James T. Edgar, Tomasz A. Matlosz, Officer Paul A. Zack, Chief James M. Schulhafer, and C.I.T. Leader Detective Lieutenant Abdul Williams.
