[Music] and in depth on this Monday an Oldsmar woman decapitated a child thrown from a St Petersburg Bridge crimes that shock the Bay Area now penelas County's top law man says crimes involving the mentally ill are on the rise Bay news 's Al relle asked Sheriff Bob G Terry what needs to be done to better protect the sick the community and First Responders joining me right now is Sheriff Bob gter pelis County good to see you all right mental health issues I know that you guys have had a tough time and we've actually seen an uptick in the number of mental health cases that you're dealing with why do you think that is well I think that twofold reasons really one is that in some cases uh law enforcement uh is not dealing with them uh the best that we can in diverting these people out of the criminal justice system so that they're on a Revol in and out of the jail and in and out of the system at the same time uh the mental and Behavioral Health System is not doing the best job that it can with long-term care with case management with navigating these people so what we're seeing is we're seeing a high volume of people that are jumping back and forth between the criminal justice system the jail and the mental and Behavioral Health System so it really require some long-term care and some intervention and law enforcement doing a better job of identifying this Behavior as being mental and Behavioral Health not criminal don't put them in the jail and put them in that revolving door so I think it's a couple of aspects you know what happens in the media is then because those cases become sensationalized where we had the guy who killed his his mother with a hatchet and then you had the situation at Florida State University which was just so tragic where people were trying to get this guy helped they couldn't in time he shoots somebody he gets killed I don't know on is this happening in other places too it is you know and and the jails are inundated you know we have about 2,800 inmates of P County Jail okay 1,000 of those 2,800 have mental and behavioral health issues we have 600 on psychotrop drugs today as we sit here in the penel county jail um but it's not just us not just the big counties it's the small counties up in uh up in Northeast Florida and Clay County they have a maximum inmate population of about 450 25% of them have mental and behavioral health problems so it it's it's a lot of people and the criminal justice system and the jails have become the repository uh and it's just not being dealt with the way it needs to well then who is responsible for these individuals well it's a complic at that's a complicated question a complicated answer so it's you have a lot of providers out there you have a baker act that provides for uh assessment uh but not necessarily long-term treatment uh in some cases it does uh and you have crisis stabilization the problem is is long term and I give you a quick example of of this uh about a month ago woman in St Pete Beach she came at deputies with a knife over her head she and wanted the deputies to shoot and kill her luckily the deputies were crisis in intervention team trained they didn't at their own Peril uh they ran away from her and then were able to use non-lethal Force to take her into custody so this is a woman that charge the deputies with a knife over her head right making threats to them within 3 days she's releasing the mental health system with with drugs you know what she did with the drugs she threw them in the trash can so the case man it's a problem and it's long-term case management it's navigating these people that's not the answer so when you have somebody that is charging deputies almost shot and killed and they would have been J and using lethal Force luckily they made the right decision and they didn't charge her with a crime they put her into the mental and Behavioral Health System but she's released and she throws a medication in in the trash this guy in olar who chopped his mother's head off sat down at the dinner table mom had been giving his his medication by surreptitiously putting it in his food she couldn't put it in his food anymore so he was off his meds because she was trying to sneak him as medication that's the systems breaking down with long-term care and this is where I think we need to focus and the system needs to focus okay then because it is complicated you've been to Tallahassee you were testifying what did you find to be some kind of a solution you got one part three part 10 part what well I I think two main parts and this is what I suggested to the Senate and to the house is is that to fund Statewide uh Crisis Intervention team training for law enforcement okay of the 67 sheriffs in Florida only 40 participate so we have 27 Sheriff's offices that don't participate at all in Crisis Intervention team training which is training the deputies to identify the M mental behavioral health issues and keep the people out of the jail so we need to expand that and get them better trained and have more extensive training there's also hundreds of police departments that don't participate so we need a Statewide effort to get the goal being 100% participation you know of course whether we get there that's a different story um and then on the on the backside is to uh for the system itself to do a better job with master case management and Navigators so that they're and that we're following up with these people because we're not doing it right uh we're doing it well in some cases we can do it better we can do it law enforcement can but even if we do it perfectly but they're going into a system that's revolving them out the door like that example that I gave you then we're not accomplishing anything but then doesn't this require a whole lot more case managers cuz actually it almost kind of Falls over into the DCF thing they're not related but in a way they are is that when you have more sick people and I'll call them that you need more case workers but if you don't have more case workers there's not enough eyes on that person to know like this one time one person had been around to 29 times yes 29 times and in out of the jail many times yeah so it's not working so what is going to take and that uh what we are advocating for is additional funding uh for the service providers but what we also have to do in Florida ranks about 50th in the country in per capita mental health funding we're at the bottom so we need more money but we also need uh an analysis evaluation of the current spending and making sure that we're funding the right programs evidence-based programs at work there are some good models around the state Orange County seal County uh are doing a good job and probably better over in Central Florida than the rest of the state as far as a central receiving facility what they call aot which is assisted Outpatient Treatment they have some significant programs over there that are working Miami Dade County probably leads the state in Crisis Intervention team training so I think we need to look around and those that are working use them those that are not dump them and make sure that one we're not just throwing money at it it needs to be done in the right way with an evaluation of what works because otherwise we're spinning our Wheels okay just walk me through this a little bit someone is Baker acted they get Baker acted then who is responsible for their care well here in penel County uh they go to a receiving facility um and the receiving facilities are pems uh or they could go to St Anthony's or to Morton Plant if they if they have insurance okay U otherwise they're they're going to pems and they have a facility in St Pete they have one on us9 in penel park and it the numbers are staggering um in in the State of Florida in 2013 there were 172,000 Baker acts in pelis county in 2013 there were 10,000 Baker acts yeah now a lot of these people are Baker Act at one time but when I say 10,000 Baker acts it's not 10,000 different people is that when you break it down there's the person 29 times there's High recidivism within a group of people and those are the same people that are bouncing back and forth so they go in they're Baker acted the maximum under the Baker Act for the initial evaluation is 72 hours they get out within the 72 hours because the follow up's not there and then they come back again they go to the jail and they're just bouncing around lastly because we're almost out of time reception you got up in Tallahassee people go yeah this is something we need to work on or they just go under the rug no I think they're very receptive this year and talking to leadership and talking to the governor uh and the Committees it has hasse's attention it has the legislator's attention it's got leadership's attention representative Peters is going to file a bill there's a few others that are out there I think something's going to be done this year okay good Sheriff thank you for stopping by and good luck and getting something done thank you gu Terry told State lawmakers during a panel discussion in Tallahassee earlier this month that his deputies respond to eight mental health calls every day he suggested expanding Crisis Intervention team Statewide and more training for First Responders hungry diners a poorly marked Street and impatient drivers causing problems on an iness road coming up realtime traffic's Chuck Henson looks at a possible solution now your weather on the n's forecast featuring KRON 9 travel weather's coming up lots of rain going on out to the West