Police reformers push for de-escalating training only 25% of OKCPD currently have

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — In the wake of Bennie Edwards's death, calls from the community demanding more Oklahoma City police officers receive crisis intervention training has erupted.

Among those calling for change, award-winning journalist Joe Hight, who authored “Unnecessary Sorrow” a book he wrote after his oldest brother Paul was shot and killed by Oklahoma City police.

It’s a loss Hight says still haunts him, “I think a person who has lost a family member to tragedy never has closure.”

Just days away from the 20th anniversary of Paul’s passing, police shot and killed Edwards, a 60-year-old black man known for selling flowers on the street. It was a day Hight says felt hauntingly familiar.

“It was just amazing to me, 20 years later we still have the same situation occurring,” said Hight.

Both Edwards and Hight's brother Paul suffered from severe schizophrenia, both were accused of running towards officers with a knife, and both were gunned down by police not given crisis intervention training, commonly referred to as CIT.

Although all officers receive some form of mental health training annually, CIT is a voluntary 40-hour program that specializes in training tactics critical to avoiding deadly escalations with those in the midst of a mental health crisis.

Public information officer Gary Knight with the Oklahoma City Police Department says of the approximately 1,100 officers on the force, only 148 are trained in crisis intervention. Knight claims that equates to 25% of the officers who respond to 911 calls.

“It was striking that another individual had to die in a police-involved shooting, but not surprised in the fact that it continues based on statistics,” said Hight.

It’s an unfortunate reality. According to a recent study done by the Treatment Advocacy Center, those with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter. And those encounters are happening more and more often. Since the department started tracking its calls in 2013, calls into dispatch involving a mental-health situation have more than doubled.

In 2019 alone, nearly 15,000 calls were mental health-related.

“They are responding to calls day and night that might not be the most appropriate placement is to have rung into 911,” says Commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Carrie Hodges.

Hodges knows basic police training can backfire when used on those experiencing a mental health crisis. She says there’s a plethora of research that shows CIT effectively teaches the tools to prevent fatal flaws.

“Situations where it is utilized and people are trained in it, that is the most likely scenario to have a positive outcome,” says Hodges.

While Oklahoma City police declined an interview with FOX 25 to discuss why the majority of officers don’t receive this training, mental health advocate and County Commissioner, Carrie Blumert says it’s a conversation she has had with Chief Gourley in the past.

“I asked him why all of his officers didn’t get CIT training and his opinion was that he really wanted to only send officers to training who really cared about it,” recalled Blumert.

To which Blumbert disagrees, saying all officers could benefit exponentially from CIT.

Blumert explained, “As an officer, you never know when you’re going to come across that situation. You may not be the one who responds to those crisis calls, but you never know when you’re going to drive up on a situation where you need to have the skills.”

“As the public, we should demand that administration to give them that training,” says Hight, “It doesn’t mean you can’t support police if you support better training for police before they become an officer.”

It’s training Hight says can no longer change the ending to his brothers’ story, but might help turn the page for someone else’s.

“It didn’t have to happen,” says Hight.