I remember a uh when I was a brand new officer and there was a woman in downtown Portland I was um a phase five in in downtown and she was going around smashing windows and of cars and so I wasn't I mean I knew that there was a mental health component but I was looking first and foremost at the uh the criminal mischief element the criminal side of it and so I took her to jail um for all you know smashing all of the windows on these cars and a few years ago uh she was actually arrested on that warrant she was um the warrant had been in the system for 10 years and she was brought back to M nma County from some other place and as I was reading the reports I was thinking to myself this this woman was mentally ill this woman should have been hospitalized and she was in clear crisis as I was reading through my report and I just didn't have the training I didn't have the the knowledge or the Insight U to go about um that call a different way and um I pointed that out to the district attorney and actually recommended you know having been 10 years later that this case be dismissed and um and he actually agreed so that just for me that was a real sort of an eye openening um experience and a wakeup call and how we've really so so how I've grown personally and also you know how we've changed um in the criminal justice system as well I I can remember when we first started there were there were far fewer um officially designated mental health calls that we responded to they were always there but we just weren't necessarily recognizing them or trained to recognize them um it's interesting I hear officers say there seem to be so many more mental health calls now and I think what it is is we know what we're looking at we we understand the behavior and we didn't necessarily understand it before not to the degree we do now we we're able to look we're able to look at these calls through a different lens I think the police Bureau is sort of a microcosm of society in dealing with all of the social issues of the day and I think that Society is becoming more aware of mental illness and there's a greater uh understanding and appreciation for um mental health and Behavioral Health than there ever was before that's nice all that's that's nice well good well uh I hope your knee is okay this one your that knee right there I hope it's okay which hospital are you going to Emanuel Emanuel well good luck with that and I work around here so you'll probably see me around which are you I'm Jason Jones here I'll give you a business card you want a business card put in a good word for me at the police department you you want me to put in a good word for you well I will do that okay there you go all right take care um as corny as it sounds I like helping people it's why I I signed up for this job I get the opportunity to help people in crisis and what a better way to do that than actually be able to talk to them and and uh show them that we as police officers are there to help we're not there we're not something to be feared but rather we're a resource uh that we're peacekeepers and were able to um help them through their time of Crisis despite all some of these intimidating tools that I wear on my um my vest and my hip and uh you know it's just one of those things as a police officer um different officers have different skills different interests um and one of mine is just working with people that uh need help and are in crisis I've just always been drawn to those kind of calls and uh I enjoy um going through those calls and learning and and growing as an officer and developing new skills you know I feel very very fortunate to get to be up here and get to be a police officer in in Portland it might sound corny but 651 and