Freedom vs. Compassion

Mentally ill caught in the middle of debate over civil rights, best care

By Peter Korn

The Gresham Outlook, Jul 30, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

Many mental health professionals question whether it is too hard to civilly commit psychotic people in Multnomah County.

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Gresham police trained in response to people undergoing psychotic episodes

It’s hard to imagine a less dangerous looking man than Wilford Harris as he is led by sheriff’s deputies into a courtroom on the second floor of the Multnomah County Courthouse. Or a man more out of place.

Five of the six other people seated around the oval table in Judge Connie Isgro’s courtroom are dressed in suits and ties. Isgro, directly opposite Harris, wears a black robe.

The question of whether the 54-year-old Harris is truly dangerous has him in Isgro’s courtroom. Ostensibly, he’s here because his pants have a habit of winding up around his ankles. And because, by his own account, he’s lost 50 pounds in recent months. And because police and county mental health investigators have found him living in a garbage-strewn motel room with bottles of psychiatric medications he has stopped taking.

Reliable witnesses will testify on this morning that Harris is delusional and paranoid, and most of the things he says will only serve to emphasize both diagnoses. But make no mistake, Harris is aware enough to know what is being discussed and decided: his freedom.

He’s leaning forward, arms perched on the table, as Isgro says, “The issue here today is whether you are mentally ill.”

Civil commitments have become increasingly rare in Multnomah County during the past three decades. Now, a host of civic leaders from Mike Reese, Portland’s chief of police, to downtown businesspeople, want state law changed so it becomes easier to send county residents to psychiatric institutions against their will.

Even many mental health professionals are beginning to question whether it’s too hard to civilly commit psychotic people in Multnomah County.

In recent months, the fatal police shootings of Jackie Dale Collins, Aaron Campbell and Keaton Dupree Otis, three Portland residents who had mental illnesses, have revived questions raised in late 2006 when James Chasse Jr. died in police custody, and again two years later when George Grigorieff, homeless and mentally ill, froze to death in a winter storm, unwilling or unable to accept the help of social service agencies sheltering the most vulnerable.

Police are flooded with cases of people with mental illness committing mostly small crimes.

Get these people off the streets and get them help, says Reese, who says the legal standard for commitment has become too high.

“You can starve yourself to death over time or drink yourself to death over time or live on the streets in squalor and kill yourself over time, but the law doesn’t recognize that as an imminent danger,” Reese says.

Getting help

Gresham officers have frequent run-ins with people battling mental illnesses and, according to the police department, they’ve been able to adequately find them help or place them under a civil hold.

“Oftentimes officers don’t know the people they are encountering have any mental illness. When they do encounter people who are known to have mental illness, the officer must evaluate the correct way to approach them. There is not a set policy or procedure for approaching people with mental illness, as every situation is different,” said Craig Junginger, Gresham chief of police.

Many of the Gresham police officers have gone through 40 hours of crisis intervention training, Gresham Capt. Tim Gerkman said.

Gresham police started taking crisis intervention training after the schizophrenic Chasse Jr. died in Portland after being injured while he was arrested.

“When officers encounter someone who they deem a danger to themselves or a danger to others, officers can detain them on a civil hold and transport them to the nearest hospital where they will be evaluated and then sent for further examination,” Junginger said.

The length of time a person spends in the hospital depends on the recommendation from the hospital and the examination.

“I think we do a good job trying to de-escalate,” Gerkman said.

Not every hospital is equipped to handle these types of cases and some transfer patients to other hospitals and facilities in the Portland area, Gerkman said.

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