Last week University Police Chief Michael Gibson was named Police Chief of the Year by the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ Crisis Intervention Team. Gibson was recognized for his work training University Police officers through the Crisis Intervention Team program and was nominated by his colleague Thomas von Hemert, Thomas Jefferson Area Crisis Intervention Team Program coordinator.
“I was pretty surprised,” Gibson said, regarding his award, which he received while attending the NAMI conference held last week in Atlanta.
The award is given to a police chief with a CIT program, nominated by anyone in his or her department or “anyone who knows them,” explained Sgt. Robert Northcutt of the College Park Georgia Police Department.
Gibson’s accomplishments were apparent through his use of grant money to increase the number of officers in his department who had received CIT training, Northcutt said. CIT training is a “win-win for everyone,” he added.
The CIT program itself is based on national guidelines issued through the “Memphis model” for training, which focuses on training police officers to know how to respond to crisis situations, von Hemert said.
“The CIT program is a collaboration of the criminal justice and mental health systems working together as a front-end system to keep people in crisis with mental illness out of the justice system,” he explained.
CIT training is especially useful for police forces based near college campuses, Gibson noted.
“With the Medical Center and the number of people that come in and out of that facility, and most all of them are in a trying situation ... the possibility of our folks running into [a crisis] environment where we need to use those skills is pretty high,” he said.
Locally, the police forces have a long record of working with departments across jurisdictions, Gibson said, and receiving grant money to focus on CIT training was “an opportunity for us as a group to bring some training to the police officers that would reduce the risk of them having to deal with someone in a crisis episode.”
A large majority of University police officers have received CIT training, Gibson said.
“In our police department, the interest in CIT has been phenomenal,” he said, noting this is primarily because officers “recognize the value of it.”
Part of the CIT training focuses on teaching officers how to recognize symptoms of various mental health disorders as well as how to deal with people in situations of high stress or crisis, Northcutt said. “It gives people a totally different perspective and the tools that they need to deal with them.”
Having officers who are CIT trained is important in many types of situations, Gibson pointed out.
“Some of the skills that an officer learns in this training [apply] to everybody that you come in contact with,” he said. “There’s an immediate value to this training.”
The ideal implementation of the CIT program, von Hemert explained, involves not only training officers but also collaborating with the mental health and criminal justice systems to determine how they can work together. Creating better policies provides safety for everybody, von Hemert said.
Training officers through the CIT program is also highly beneficial for the community, Gibson noted.
“It helps us use our local resources for the right reasons – jail versus medical resources,” he said.
Gibson has been working for the University Police since 1982 and has been chief for the past 3 years, he said, and has been supporting CIT since the early stages of his career.
Read More
Winsome Earle-Sears talks higher education in first U.Va. event of the campaign
By Ford McCracken | 9 hours agoA Jamaican immigrant and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Earle-Sears is the first female lieutenant governor of Virginia,
U.Va.'s Earth Day Eco-Fair 2025 spotlights sustainability advocacy
By Leigh Bailey | 10 hours agoStudents from Contracted Independent Organizations and University Office of Sustainability leadership programs each shared their unique perspectives about sustainability advocacy on Grounds.
Student Council votes to relocate Hereford orchard and basketball hoop
By Lauren Seeliger | 20 hours agoStudent Council passed a resolution Tuesday to relocate the orchard and basketball hoop of Hereford Residential College due to construction in the surrounding area.
