OLYMPIA – Legislation to require police officers to receive training on dealing with mentally ill people, called crisis intervention training, was introduced by two Kitsap County legislators recently, Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Kitsap County, and Rep. Sherry Appleton, D-Poulsbo.

“This could save lives,” said Appleton, sponsor of House Bill 1348. “It’s hard for the untrained person to spot mental illness, and police are rightly trained to react instinctively to threats to the public or to themselves. We want to give them new tools to avoid tragedies like the one involving Doug Ostling. No one wants to have other grief-stricken families or traumatized, heartbroken officers.”

Doug Ostling, a Bainbridge Island man who suffered from mental illness, was tragically shot and killed in 2010 by police officers who had not received the training this legislation proposes.

If passed, police officers would receive eight hours of initial crisis intervention training with two additional hours incorporated into existing online yearly training. Although it used to be common in police departments, recession-era cuts eliminated this training in police departments across Washington. In recent years, law enforcement officers have experienced a marked increase in confrontations with mentally ill individuals. This training helps officers identify and de-escalate situations where someone may be behaving erratically, but are not necessarily a threat. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, 1 in 17 Americans suffers from severe mental illness.