12-29-15 A double shooting by Chicago police caused the mayor to call for a city-wide review of training and Alexa James, the executive director of the National Alliance On Mental Illness chapter in Chicago, was quick to tell reporters about the importance of Crisis Intervention Team training. Unfortunately, it often takes tragedies such as a fatal police shooting to get our elected officials and the public to pay attention to mental illness.
I have always encouraged NAMI and other advocacy groups to step forward during these teachable moments. The trick, of course, is to not be predatory or exploitive of a preventible tragedy but to offer solutions. James did a fabulous job of pushing CIT in the Associated Press article that I’ve posted below.
I also received a call yesterday about the double Chicago fatalities from Mark Segraves, a reporter with Washington D.C.’s Channel 4, who had interviewed my son, Kevin, and me, earlier for a wonderful year-long series called Changing Minds that the NBC affiliate has been broadcasting about mental health issues.