B.C. cities call for mental health professionals to join police on mental health calls
'The back seat of a police car is for suspects, not for patients,' says Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart
Cities in B.C.'s Lower Mainland are calling on their local health authority and the province for support for police who are responding to dozens of mental health calls every day.
The mayors of Burnaby and Coquitlam have both asked Fraser Health to provide mental health professionals to accompany police officers on mental health calls, similar to programs established in other B.C. cities.
On Oct. 18, Burnaby RCMP Const. Shaelyn Yang, who also went by her given name, Tzu-Hsin, was stabbed to death while responding to a call about a tent in a local park. According to the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, she'd gone with a city employee to notify the man inside that he wouldn't be allowed to keep living there.
Jongwon Ham, 37, has since been charged with first-degree murder. Ham was wanted on a previous assault charge at the time of his arrest.
Yang worked with Burnaby RCMP's police mental health and outreach team (PMHOT), consisting of three officers who work with community organizations on matters of mental health and homelessness.
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'De facto social workers'
In an interview with the Canadian Press, Sgt. Steve Addison of the Vancouver Police Department said police have become de facto social workers for people who lack support services while struggling with homelessness, mental illness and substance use, which could put them in potentially dangerous situations.
Addison said "default policing'' is increasingly the reality for people who have neither a place to live nor the help they need for mental health woes that keep them living in encampments that tend to be moved from one location to another.
"We're seeing people who are living with this constellation of very complex social issues that are not only making them unsafe but making other people unsafe,'' he said.
As part of a mental health outreach program known as Car 87, the Vancouver Police Department partners a plainclothes officer with a registered nurse or a registered psychiatric nurse who assesses or provides community-based referrals for people living with a mental illness. The program started in 1978.
Police also partner with an outreach team from Vancouver Coastal Health to attend to people with more complex mental health needs where a history of violence may be involved, Addison said.
According to B.C. RCMP, mental health calls increased by nine per cent in B.C. from 2018 to 2020. During that same time, mental health apprehensions increased by about 18 per cent.
Requests denied
The City of Burnaby says it first approached Fraser Health about a partnership similar to Car 87 in late 2019.
Their request was denied.
But earlier this year, the City and RCMP renewed the request, and the city says those conversations are ongoing.
"It's something that we must get," said Mayor Mike Hurley. "I'm past the stage of being nice about it. We're struggling. "This situation continues to deteriorate."
The nearby City of Coquitlam has asked for similar support but was told Fraser Health was unable to help.
"The back seat of a police car is for suspects, not for patients," said Mayor Richard Stewart, stressing the city needs more support for mental health calls so people don't wind up in police cars.
Sgt. Chris Manseau with the B.C. RCMP says the RCMP is "very supportive" of a collaborative approach when it comes to mental-health-related calls.
Advocates have long called for mental health professionals, including social workers and nurses, to be involved in mental-health-related calls to police.
"At some point, we're going to see another tragedy that is directly attributable to the fact that this kind of process occurs," Stewart said.
A spokesperson for Fraser Health says the health authority collaborates with law enforcement in several communities on different types of initiatives, including case management, treatment and homeless action response teams.
"We are committed to continue working closely with local law enforcement to reduce the risk of harm to people who have mental health and substance use concerns and support people who are unhoused, including connecting them to health and social services," Fraser Health said in a statement.
The province did not respond to a request for comment before deadline.
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With files from Camille Bains of The Canadian Press, Andrew Kurjata and Georgie Smyth