Lowell Shinn wishes he’d gotten his Crisis Intervention Team training sooner. 

“I should have done it much earlier,” Shinn, an officer with the Meridian Police Department, said. “I would inform any (new officer) to go ahead and get the class under their belt within their first year if not sooner.”

Shinn, with 13 years of experience, has seen his fair share of CIT calls, or calls about mentally ill individuals in distress. Shinn, with 11 other officers from across the state, graduated with his CIT certification Friday. 

“I felt like I needed to the training so I could be more understanding when it came to individuals with a mental illness,” Shinn said. “This week was a very challenging week but I do feel like I better understand how to deal with an individual who needs help.”

Weems Community Mental Health, the Meridian office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department and the Meridian Police Department started the Crisis Intervention Team program in early 2009, the very first in the state. Since then, Jones County, Hattiesburg and Jackson have begun efforts to create their own programs based on the effectiveness of the East Mississippi program, according to Brent Hurley, with the Mississippi Department of Health. 

“The CIT movement started in Lauderdale County,” Hurley told the graduates. “If it helps y’all out there it definitely helps the people in your communities… The biggest thanks you’ll ever get is from the family members who notice the difference you make in their lives.”

Ward Calhoun, the chief deputy of the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department, encouraged the graduates, especially those outside of Lauderdale County, to remain diligent and excited about their new training.

“Let us not get tired of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up,” Calhoun, said, reciting from Galatians 6:9. “By Tuesday you’re going to be weary, but CIT is an awesome tool. If you want to be selfish, it makes our jobs easier.”

Calhoun asked graduates to take care of themselves and never tire of helping people.

“We’re trying to give a solution to whatever problem they have,” Calhoun said. “You’re doing good for others and doing good for yourself.”

Edward Hursey, of the Waveland Police Department, will be the first Waveland officer with CIT certification. With five years prior experience in corrections and transporting people with mental illness committed by the local Chancery Court, his chief thought Hursey qualified for the training. 

“I’d never heard of CIT before the class,” Hursey said. “We’re not set up on the coast, we don’t have a single point of entry (like Newton Crisis Stabilization Unit).”

Hursey said the having the certification means that he no longer has to arrest someone in a mental health crisis at 2 a.m. because no Chancery Court judge is awake to sign an order to commit them. Now, Hursey can take someone suffering to a local Crisis Stabilization Unit to get them off of the streets and into care.

“With this class, we have the options and resources to get them the help they need,” Hursey said, adding that he hoped more officers on the coast would get the training. “There’s a lot of mentally ill people on the coast that we can help now.”

The 40-hour course covers de-escalation techniques, personal stories, site visits and goes into role-playing to help the officers understand the difficulties someone in a crisis faces.

“We have to break the stigma some people might have about mental illness,” Sgt. Heather Luebbers, one of the instructors, said. “We’ll do something about hearing voices and it’ll just grab their attention.”

Luebbers said that officers should wait until after their first year to become CIT certified and focus on everything else they’re learning.

“Because we’re throwing a lot at this in their first year, we don’t want to throw too much on their plate,” Luebbers said. “But that’s when we start watching for those who’d be good for CIT — those who are good talkers and calm.”

Luebbers graduated with the first CIT class in Lauderdale County in 2012. Since then, she’s become the Crisis Intervention Team Coordinator for the Meridian Police Department. 

“It’s been incredible to watch it grow and develop into what it is today,” Luebbers said. “I’ve seen it take off across the state.”

But more than anything, the lessons of CIT never leave officers.

“They’re just like us, they’re normal people who didn’t choose to get sick,” Luebbers said. “But it benefits not just the community but also the officers to have this training.”

Officers graduating Friday include: David Bean, Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department; Lawrence Card, Union Police Department; Reginald Cooper, Byram Police Department; Raymon O. Grogan III, Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department; Josh Hansen, Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department; Edward Hursey, Waveland Police Department; Maurice Kendrick, Byram Police Department; Tyquanderius McKenzie, Meridian Police Department; David McQueen, Meridian Police Department; Lowell Shinn, Meridian Police Department; Brittany Vallas, Meridian Police Department; and Jason Walker, the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department. 

Other local CIT agencies include the Clarke County Sheriff’s Department, DeKalb Police Department, Kemper County Sheriff’s Department, Meridian Public School District Campus Police, Newton Police Department and Quitman Police Department. Mental health partners include Alliance Health Center, Central Mississippi Residential Center and Weems Community Mental Health.