Council debates police role in mental health

A $112,211 purchase of 70 BolaWraps–handheld devices that deploy a non-lethal Kevlar restraint– to employ officers with a safer option for crises involving mental illness or drug induced psychosis resulted in a heated debate about the role of law enforcement in such matters.

The San Marcos City Council supported the item awarding the San Marcos Police Department by a five to one vote, with one absent and San Marcos City Council Member Alyssa Garza with the dissenting vote, at their regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday.

Garza said she didn’t believe mental health responses should be handled by the police.

“Depending upon the police is a costly and dangerous substitute for funding a functioning mental health system,” Garza said. “Every dollar spent toward putting things–even if they’re less than lethal weapons– should be done in a very intentional and thorough manner.”

San Marcos Police Department Chief Stan Standridge said he agreed that mental health should not be handled by the police. He said that the system must be changed by the whole of the community and that police are not the obstacle to make that happen–they’d prefer it.

“However, until that system is openly built, people still call 9-1-1,” Standridge said. “In the city of San Marcos they still get a peace officer and an embedded mental health clinician when she’s on duty. So we are making strides to do exactly what you would advocate, but that is a very expensive solution that is not done yet.”

Standridge said that for all of 2022 the police department had 65,500 citizen contacts and force was used only 59 times. He said this would further mitigate the risk.

“[That] Tells me that we have a very judicious use of force in this city,” Standridge said. “We also have a use of force policy that was fully reviewed by this council and adopted with the support of a council committee that you all appointed.”

Garza said she wasn’t sure of the need for the device if, as he implied, the police are already do- ing a good job not using force.

Standridge said the police come into contact with citizens in a mental health crisis or drug induced psychosis every day in this city.

“This is a less lethal restraint device designed to de-escalate,” Standridge said. “All of us should be on board with de-escalation, I would think.”

Garza said it's imperative that expenditures for the police department receive proper attention and scrutiny. She said she found a police message board with claims that the device is not always effective. She said an officer on the message board said that the device sounded like a gunshot, which is not what you would want during a deescalation scenario. She read a couple of the messages allowed.

“‘I’ve seen it used in the field under those circumstances that you see in the promotional videos. This guy was in a fighting position standing still one hand about chest high in a fist and the other hand was by his waist,’’’ Garza read. “‘He was able to pull his higher arm out, and use that arm to pull away the wrap and free his other arm … These things flat out do not work, even under the most generous of circumstances.’” Standridge said the device does not rely on pain compliance, as some of the tools on his belt do. According to the University of San Diego website, pain compliance involves a variety of pain-inducing techniques to persuade an uncooperative arrestee to comply with the demands of law enforcement. He said the wrap keeps the person restrained so the officer can then move into apprehension mode.

“Literally every day we come into contact with people who may have a mental health crisis,” Standridge said. “We could use force to take civil custody or we could use a BolaWrap–that’s not force–and it’s 80% effective. To me, that’s a no-brainer.” He said that figure came from the device's website.

Garza pointed out that the information came from a website whose creators have an economic interest in promoting the product’s efficacy.

She said regardless of that, her concern lies in the expense.

“We seldom just go writing these checks to things without having thoughtful conversations on [whether] is this the best place to put our money,” Garza said.

San Marcos City Manager Chase Stapp pointed out that excessive force that results in injury is very costly to the city.

San Marcos City Council Member Jude Prather said he believed this would be one more nonlethal tool on the law enforcement officer’s belt that would help with de-escalation.

To learn more about the device go to wrap.com/ bolawrap.