Mental health calls a reality for Greater Victoria's Emergency Response Team
Vancouver Island Free DailyAug 31, 2018
It wasn't a gun, but the threat of one is something police had to take seriously.
When an agitated young man (believed to be in his 20s) called 911 from the pay phone in the lobby of
The scare of a shooter was real, though short lived.
Turns out there was no gun, but there was a person in an extreme mental health crisis.
At the threat of a shooter police urged Pearkes be immediately placed on lock down. Ice times were over, the gym was empty and the only remaining people in the building – five staff and one patron – hid themselves away for a little more than an hour as
"It started around
The suspect was eventually apprehended at about
Police did not recommend criminal charges.
"At the end of the day it culminates as a mental health file," said Bland.
Responding to mental health calls are not uncommon for the GVERT. On average GVERT responds to a total of about 40 to 60 calls a year. In 2016 it hit a high of 71, and nine of those calls were deemed as mental health incidents. But GVERT wasn't created to respond to mental health incidents. Ideally, GVERT is a well-trained tactical team and is generally successful in assisting regional police in high-risk situations, such as recovering firearms on calls, having done so in 23 of its 71 deployments in 2016.
Should the gun threat have been omitted from the call,
From December of 2016 to May of 2017, IMCRT answered a staggering 687 phone calls from Saanich, 1,020 from Victoria and hundreds more from around the region.
"It was a great job the police did in dealing with it, we're very thankful," said Pearkes manager
It's not the first time someone has experienced mental health issues at Pearkes, and it won't be the last. Staff are trained to assist people in need, but the line is drawn around personal safety, Thomson said.
"We train our staff on being eyes and ears, being able to communicate back to the police and others about what's going on, what we might see here," Thomson said. "We do not ask staff to intervene, or put themselves in harm's way, we aren't police. We train our staff on different techniques, to be non-confrontational, and around policies and procedures, but our main role is safety ourselves and safety around us."