Dayton police recruits receiving training on handling mental health situations

DAYTON — Dayton police are in the middle of training their 111th recruit class of cadets to become police officers as nationwide and city-wide police reforms are underway. In Dayton, the police academy is training cadets for a huge issue for modern policing: dealing with people experiencing mental health challenges.

News Center 7 was at one of the police academy’s training sessions on January 6, where an instructor played the part of a man depressed about his family situation and considering suicide.

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The recruits practiced in two-man crews, leaning to listen and persuade while trying to search for the successful outcome.

Lt. Matt Dickey, DPD Academy Commander, told News Center 7′s Mike Campbell that recruits are learning to identify people in crisis, as well as how to respond to it.

“Knowing what mental health issues look like, what depression looks like, what schizophrenia looks like,” Dickey said.

Instructors said the sessions help teach the future officers how to remain calm in theses situations in order to handle them.

“In these stressful situations, if you are not calm, you might agitate the person even more trying to de-escalate,” Officer John Kernich said.

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Kernich said that his nearly 14-year career as an officer, he has seen mental health challenges become much more common, making the training even more important for recruits.

“We’re dealing with more mental health situations and crisis, from minor to major delusional,” Kernich said.

The instructors at the training told News Center 7 that they wanted to make things as real as possible for the recruits so that once they graduate, they will feel like they have already been in those situations before and have the skills to handle it.

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