Equipping Officers to Deal with Mental Health Patients  

In today’s interview, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams revisited the shooting incident involving PC Sheldon Arzu and twenty-four-year-old Emil Rivers in Independence Village. Reports indicate that Rivers was experiencing mental health issues during his encounter with the officers. ComPol Williams admitted that the department needs to improve how officers handle situations involving individuals with mental health struggles.

 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“I believe we failed or we are failing our officers to some extend in not providing the relevant training and tools to be able to address mental health issues. Mental health is becoming more and more a reality in our country. You will find that people who do not even have a history with mental health would suddenly develop a mental health issue. I think we must do more to sensitize our officers in terms of how to deal with people with mental health issues, as well as give them the right tools to be able to address when matters reaches that stage where force needs to be used. Regrettably the only thing available to officers is their firearm with lethal ammunition. I wish and I am hoping we will change that shortly. I am in communication with my senior command to see what we can do to change that. We want to make sure we can equip every police station with shotgun and rubber bullets and instead of using lethal weapons in these circumstances we can use the rubber bullet to decelerate the situations that reaches that level.  In process I will discuss with the minister as well as the minister of human development to see what we can do. We can also look at introducing tasers. We don’t have laws that govern the use of tasers. We might have to go to AG and see how we can get tasers into the police act to include tasers as part of the weapon police can use.”