Mental health calls for service to FRPD continue to rise, says police chief

Police Chief Kahle Magalis

FRONT ROYAL — Mental health calls for service from the Front Royal Police Department (FRPD) remain on track this year to surpass those made in 2017 and 2018, according to Police Chief Kahle Magalis.

Chief Magalis, at the request of Front Royal Town Councilman Jacob Meza, provided members with data and information on the impacts that mental health calls for service are having on the community from a law enforcement perspective, outlining what the department currently faces, how it responds, and what’s needed going forward.

Statewide, the Virginia hospital census has seen a 294-percent increase in temporary detention order (TDO) admissions. Here, the Northwestern Community Services Board must complete an evaluation before a magistrate issues a TDO.

Once issued, the TDO directs a law enforcement officer to take a person into custody and transport him or her to a specified facility for further treatment for a suspected mental illness, Magalis said, noting that all TDOs for persons located in Front Royal are forwarded to the FRPD for service.

A TDO requires that the person remain in custody until a court holds a civil proceeding — usually held within 72 hours — to determine if involuntary admission to a facility is needed, unless the medical facility director determines that further treatment isn’t necessary.

At the same time, state hospital beds are scarce. Facilities under the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) average a 96-percent capacity rate, a figure that at times has risen to 100 percent capacity, said Magalis.

“Clearly this is not a sustainable trajectory,” Magalis told Front Royal Town Council members during their September 16 regular meeting and work session.

While DBHDS is experiencing increasing pressures, Magalis said that the overall number of statewide TDOs has held steady at roughly 25,500 per year.
Likewise, in the counties of Warren, Frederick, Clarke, and Page, Magalis provided 2016-2019 data showing what he called “fairly consistent” numbers for evaluations, TDOs, and emergency custody orders (ECOs).

ECOs are similar to TDOs in that a magistrate may issue one for an adult or juvenile based on evidence that the person suffers from a mental illness. ECOs also are forwarded to the FRPD for service if the person lives locally and a police officer may take the person into custody and transport the person to a specified location for evaluation to determine if mental health treatment is needed. An ECO allows eight hours for an employee or designee of the Northwestern Community Services Board to complete an evaluation and locate a treatment facility if it’s needed.

What’s different is that when an ECO is issued, a family member or friend also may be authorized to serve as an “alternative transportation provider” under certain circumstances, Magalis said.
In Front Royal, specifically, overall mental health calls for service to the FRPD encompass three categories of mental health issues: suicide/suicidal; ECO/TDO; and ‘other,’ which includes overdoses.

The total of 196 mental health calls for service to FRPD have been made thus far through August, a total that Magalis said is on track to match and possibly surpass the total of 256 calls in 2018 and the 228 calls in 2017.

In a breakdown of the FRPD mental health calls for service, the combined ECO and TDO total was 79 in 2017; 98 in 2018; and now stands at 60 for this year through August.
Meanwhile, the total number of suicide/suicidal mental health calls for service increased from 89 in 2017 to 104 in 2018, while so far this year there have been 70 suicide/suicidal calls to the FRPD.

In the ‘other’ category, the total number of mental health calls for service dropped from 60 in 2017 to 54 in 2018. This year, though, the total is already at 66.

One of the ways the FRPD works to answer mental health calls for service is via the grant-funded Crisis Intervention Team Assessment Center (CITAC), which is a secure facility staffed by CIT-trained law enforcement officers and licensed by the Virginia DBHDS as an evaluation center for individuals who require evaluation for involuntary hospitalization.

People under an ECO get transported to the CITAC, located on the Winchester Medical Center campus, by an on-duty officer and custody is transferred to the CITAC, where clients are monitored prior to, during, and while awaiting TDO and transport.

“A lot of times these officers who spend time with these folks are able to de-escalate some of them” from being in a situation where they may have needed a TDO and to be transported to a facility, said Magalis, who added that half of the FRPD’s sworn staff is CITAC trained, along with about a quarter of the communications staff.

Councilwoman Letasha Thompson said she was glad to hear that the number of trained CITAC officers has risen.

Police Chief Kahle Magalis makes his presentation to Town Council

“I’m working on trying to up that,” Magalis responded, adding, “I’d like to see the whole agency trained. But the CITAC trainings are hard to come by these days.”

Another helpful effort, said the police chief, would be a Warren County designation under the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) grant program, which provides assistance to federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) plays an active role in HIDTA-designated counties, which are located in 49 states, as well as in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia.

“It’s bad that we’re in the situation that we’re in that we have this sort of thing to deal with,” Magalis said, “but it’s good that we are trying to get that designation because it would open up some resources to us that previously weren’t available to us.”

Councilman Meza, who requested the report from Magalis, thanked the police chief and said that overall, the information highlights “the increasing problem of resources” in Front Royal.

Watch the presentation from Chief Magalis in the exclusibe Royal Examiner video: