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Sadly, no CIT Officer of the Year in Fairfax

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I returned from speaking at the International Crisis Intervention Team conference in San Antonio, Texas, with mixed feelings. The conference was great and I was especially pleased to bump into Robert Cluck from my local NAMI chapter in Northern Virginia, as well as Major Tom Ryan from the Fairfax Police Department, who has been one of our county’s strongest CIT advocates. They were among the 1,300 attendees making the conference the largest to date. 
The focus of CIT has expanded from when it was first introduced.  Initially, it was seen as a training program for the police that taught officers how to respond when they encountered someone with a mental illness who was in the midst of a crisis. Now the emphasis is on using CIT to bring different community leaders together to improve mental health services.

What should we do when there is a shooting?

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I had planned to write today about my trip out of the snow-bound Washington D.C. area to Los Angeles where I toured Skid Row and the Twin Towers, which is the nickname for the city jail. As many of you know, the jail is the largest public mental institution in the U.S.

However, I decided to wait until Monday to post that account because of the police shooting here in Fairfax, Va.  that put Ian Smith, a person with mental illness, into the hospital in critical condition.

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A sad day for all of us in Fairfax

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 Tom Jackman has written a follow-up story about the shooting of Ian Smith in Herndon. You can read here.

Even though I normally don’t write on Thursdays and am out of town, I wanted to post it.

It is important for our community to get a full explanation about what happened the night Ian was shot. We need to know so that we can, hopefully, prevent future shootings. Obviously, my heart goes out to the entire Smith family. This is horrible. It is every family’s nightmare – calling for help and ending up having a loved one shot. The family is hurting and demanding answers. I am praying that Ian recovers. Please join me.

According to Jackman’s story, Major Tom Ryan was at the scene. While I have no inside knowledge about what happened that night, I can tell you that there is no one on the Fairfax County Police Department who has worked harder for persons with mental illness than Major Ryan. He is personally responsible for getting CIT training here. He has been its biggest booster. He cares about persons with mental illness.

And that makes this shooting incident especially tragic.

My heart goes out to the Smith family. My heart also goes out to Tom Ryan. This is a sad day for our entire Northern Virginia mental health community.

Let’s hope Ian recovers.