Pevely Officer Kayla Boyd was dispatched in April 2022 to a Pevely hotel lobby that had become a makeshift delivery room for a woman having a baby.
“The mother was walking to the lobby to go to the hospital when she fell down,” Boyd said. “The baby (girl) was almost out when I got there. I assisted with the delivery and called paramedics who took the mother, the grandmother and baby to the hospital.”
Piecing together information for her report, Boyd learned the family had been homeless for a couple of months after the grandmother lost her job and then their home. The mother had a mental disability. They had been staying at the hotel for about one week and had little food or belongings.
Boyd worked behind the scenes to help the family find somewhere to stay, and she gave them food and information about organizations that could help them.
“I stayed in contact with them for about three months,” Boyd said. “They ended up moving to a home in St. Louis.”
To thank Boyd for her good deed, the mother named her daughter Gracelynn Kayla.
Pevely Police Chief Mark Glenn did not forget Boyd’s good deed either and nominated her for a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Award.
Boyd was one of 22 officers from six Jefferson County law enforcement agencies who received a CIT Award in March for providing exceptional service to people in crisis in 2022.
They were nominated by their peers or supervisors, and the Jefferson County CIT Council selected the award recipients.
“These calls that warranted awards include situations where someone was making suicidal statements and had access to weapons,” said Lisa Flamion, a licensed counselor with the Sheriff’s Office Crisis Intervention Team and a CIT Council member who served on the committee that helped select the award recipients.
“These can be very tense moments for a law enforcement officer and for someone in crisis as well; however, in all these cases, the officers remained calm, relied on their training and brought everyone home safe,” she said.
The Jefferson County CIT Council, formed in 2011, is a partnership of the county’s 10 law enforcement agencies and 18 community agencies that specialize in mental health and addiction. It includes Comtrea, Mercy Hospital Jefferson, the Jefferson County Health Department, the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) St. Louis and Behavior Health Response. First responders and people with a mental disorder who share their “lived experiences” during CIT training classes also are part of the Council.
The CIT Council holds two 40-hour CIT basic training courses a year, as well as advance training. The program, facilitated and funded by NAMI St. Louis, gives officers specialized training to support those having a mental health crisis.
“Jefferson County has had 24 basic training courses since 2011 and trained 505 first responders, mostly law enforcement officers but also some emergency medical personnel and 911 dispatchers,” said Megan Swaback, the Jefferson County CIT Training Committee chair.
“Over the past 10 years, we’ve become really good in CIT responses,” said Glenn, the Jefferson County CIT Council chair. “We never know what we are walking into with these calls.
“It takes a calm person to calm someone who is in so much pain and experiencing such sheer desperation they don’t know what to do.”
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than one in five adults in the U.S. – 57.8 million people – lived with a mental illness in 2021.
“One in every 25 adults lives with a serious mental health condition such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or long-term recurring major depression,” said Kyle Dooley, director of CIT training for NAMI St. Louis. “Many people don’t seek treatment or are unaware their symptoms could be connected to a mental health condition.”
Flamion said the CIT program mission “is to keep those experiencing a mental health crisis out of jails and the court systems and into community-based support programs where they can access medications and other treatments.”
Paul Ferber, the keynote speaker at the CIT Officer Awards Banquet and past chair of the CIT Council, said for each state, its prison system is the largest mental health services provider.
“Prisons are the end of the problem,” he said. “How many times have we had the chance to interact with an individual who did not know services were available or who slipped through the cracks?”
“CIT training teaches first responders how to identify individuals with mental illness and how to respond compassionately in a crisis situation,” Dooley said. “We teach officers it may take hours to de-escalate a crisis and communicate effectively. The goal is to build a rapport and keep the person in crisis talking as much as possible.”
It took six hours for officers from the Sheriff’s Office to de-escalate a November 2022 incident at Don Robinson State Park in Cedar Hill where a distraught man was holding a gun to his head. Overwhelmed by a recent breakup with his girlfriend, he was slumped in the driver’s seat of his car, texting goodbye to relatives and sending his girlfriend photos of the gun to his head.
Deputy Michael Mullane, Deputy Kevin Roberts and Cpl. Drew Crews took turns talking to the man. Mullane took the exhaustive first hour establishing the situation, Roberts built a rapport over four hours and gave the man hope and Crews secured a safe surrender in the last hour. They each received a CIT Award.
“He kept saying, ‘I’m just going to kill myself. I’m going to do this,’” Roberts recalled.
“We started talking about restaurants in Texas, where we both had lived at one time. Then, we would talk about the situation and what was happening. This went on for hours and hours.”
While those communications were underway, Austin Schwent with the Sheriff’s Office Crisis Intervention Team prepared a civil involuntary affidavit, sometimes called a 96-hour hold, for the man to be taken for treatment.
“I told him during our talk that when it was all over, I was going to give him a big hug,” Roberts said. “I drove him to the hospital, and once he was settled, I said, ‘You’re in good hands, and I’m going to give you that big bear hug now.’”
The Sheriff’s Office Crisis Intervention Team follows up with the people they have helped through a mental health crisis, and Swaback, a licensed social worker for Comtrea, is the community behavioral health liaison who works with the county’s police departments.
“I provide follow up for 30 days or longer to make sure someone is getting the care they need,” Swaback said. “I often go on outreach calls with officers to help connect individuals to resources such as housing and food, behavioral health, parenting and pregnancy support, and medical and dental care. We try to meet an individual’s needs so they aren’t calling law enforcement.”
Byrnes Mill Cpl. Steve Schaffer said he tries to stay involved with those he’s helped with a mental health crisis.
“Megan comes out, and we go together, even when there’s been a minor incident,” he said.
Byrnes Mill officers stayed involved with a man who had severely cut himself with a knife in September 2022 and helped him put his life back on track. Schaffer and Officers Tim Brady and Nick Schmidt received CIT Awards for their roles.
“We were there one and a half hours when he stabbed himself. We got him to the hospital where he was in ICU for three weeks,” Schaffer said. “During this time, we made sure his girlfriend had food and assistance because she was disabled and did not drive.
“Before Christmas, we stopped in, and the man’s teenage son was visiting. He had a gift for his father, but the man was upset and crying because he could not afford presents or a Christmas tree.
“Brady told his mother about the situation, and she got a tree and presents for the son, and I got some ornaments for the tree.
“He finally got the help he needs, the medications and counseling.”
Boyd said she likes the chance to de-escalate a situation when CIT calls come in.
“Someone can be so upset about something so small, but it is so big to them,” she said. “I always try to give someone an alternative and options so they can make a choice. It can be a very successful outcome when things go right and you see them smile.”
“These officers are the best of the best,” said Anne-Marie Denny of the Jefferson County Health Department and CIT Council secretary during her welcome at the CIT Officer Awards Banquet. “They built trust and rapport in hopeless situations.
“They went above and beyond helping people and saving lives.”