CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Girl's suicide fuels mother's campaign for better mental health help from El Paso police

El Paso Times - 9/15/2020

<!-- 5658896002 -->

Charley Tennen, 17, attempted suicide for the first time in June. When El Paso police officers were called to her home on the afternoon of July 3, her mother Michelle feared she was about to try again.

Michelle told the officers her daughter had been expressing suicidal thoughts and asked them to take her to a psychiatric facility. She had refused to enter one voluntarily earlier that day.

After Charley denied being suicidal, the officers told her mother they could not intervene.

She said they were in her home for 10 minutes and spoke to Charley for less than one.

As they began to leave, Michelle said she asked them if they could send a Crisis Intervention Team, a special police unit specializing in mental health crises, but was told one was not available.

The next evening, Michelle went upstairs and found her daughter unresponsive. Charley had taken a lethal dose of pain medication.

Michelle tried CPR and yelled for her other daughter to call 911, but it was too late.

Now, the mother is calling for better access to mental health resources in El Paso to ensure that what happened to her family does not happen again. She hopes to raise awareness of the need for services like CITs and crisis counselors, which she believes could save lives like Charley's in the future.

<!-- 5657970002 -->

Intervening in times of crisis

Approved by the City Council in 2017 and launched the next year, the El Paso Police Department's Crisis Intervention Team program pairs police officers with licensed mental health clinicians from the Emergence Health Network. Officers and clinicians respond together to calls involving mental illness, with an emphasis on de-escalating tense situations.

Sgt. Sam Rangel, a supervisor for the CIT Unit who previously worked in a patrol unit, described the difference between the two approaches as "night and day."

“Patrol officers, they get a call, and they have so many things to worry about,” he said. “Other calls that are coming in, there’s a crime that’s in progress, you got traffic accidents, you have multiple things going on.”

This fast-paced work environment requires patrol officers to resolve situations as quickly as they can, before moving on to the next case.

The CIT Unit’s method, by contrast, frequently involves officers and clinicians having hourslong conversations with people experiencing mental health crises.

CIT clinicians, as medical professionals, can access the medical records of the subject of a call, often electronically as the team makes its way to the scene of an incident. This can mean that CITs can arrive with a more complete understanding of the individuals they serve.

Clinicians also can perform on-site psychiatric evaluations, allowing people in crisis to bypass the screening process at mental health facilities if the officer decides to transport them for care.

“Before CIT, what the Police Department was doing is taking the client to the hospital, the same hospitals we’re using, but they would release them to (hospital) staff and the person would have to wait there hours and hours until they get an evaluation,” said Andres Arbizu, a CIT clinician.

“Now, with CIT, the person gets an evaluation at that time, and we do not just drop them off at the hospital, but they are admitted to the hospital.”

Rangel said that this approach, though time intensive, can help prevent the people they serve from having future mental health crises that would require police intervention.

“We would much rather pay the resources up front,” he said. “If we can reduce the number of calls going to that house, we are cutting back the resources needed and we are helping not only the community, but the department to save resources.”

CIT program faces financial, staffing challenges

Several institutional factors are keeping the CIT Unit from reaching more El Pasoans in crisis.

Calls received by the Police Department are referred to the CIT Unit when a determination is made that the situation would be best served by the unit's approach.

According to data from El Paso police, an average of 167 calls to the department have been referred to the CIT Unit each month for the past 20 months, but not all can be addressed by the team.

“We don’t have the numbers to respond to every call, realistically,” Rangel said. “Our goal is to get to as many calls as we can. Maybe one day, if we can increase our numbers, then we might be able to do that.”

He said the unit currently can respond to between 60% to 65% of the calls.

The unit includes 14 officers and 14 clinicians who work 10-hour shifts, one from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and another from 2 p.m. to midnight. It also includes four supervisors from the Police Department and three from Emergence Health. Two to four officers and as many clinicians are on duty during an ordinary shift.

Unlike patrol units, which are assigned to particular regions of the city, the CIT Unit is responsible for El Paso's nearly 260-square-mile area. This sometimes makes it difficult for CITs to respond promptly, or at all, to mental health calls.

Rangel recognizes the situation isn't optimal.

"The goal is to expand the unit," he said, "and hopefully have 24-hour coverage."

Father's death brought mental health spiral

Charley Tennen had been living with gastroparesis, a stomach condition that left her unable to eat, for over two years at the time of her death.

She initially used a feeding tube inserted through her nose, which eventually was replaced with a tube connected directly to her intestine. The condition came with chronic pain and a slew of different medications.

The sudden death of Charley's father, Lanny, in April led to a steep decline in her mental health, her mother said. He had been sick for some time, but seemed to be recovering and was set to be released from the hospital shortly before an intestinal rupture ended his life.

“He died at three in the morning,” Michelle said, “and by that night she was having horrid nightmares.”

Charley had closely tracked her father’s treatment, and his death left her feeling guilty that she couldn't save him.

Before her first suicide attempt, she posted a note on Reddit. She then took an overdose of some of the medications used to treat her illness. When she woke up hours later, she told her mother what she had done.

“She was so disappointed that it hadn’t worked,” Michelle said.

It was at this point, she said, that she and Charley's psychotherapist, Allison Davis, realized the severity of her condition and began making arrangements to commit Charley to a long-term inpatient program.

Michelle was reluctant to place her on a 72-hour psychiatric hold, fearful that doing so would prompt her to attempt suicide again as soon as she was released.

Instead, she decided to stay with Charley at all times, even having her daughter sleep in the same bed.

Michelle said she took Charley to Rio Vista Behavioral Health Hospital on the morning of July 3 after her daughter expressed suicidal thoughts in a meeting with Davis.

When they arrived, however, Charley refused to get out of the car, and Michelle said that Rio Vista staff told her they were unable to forcibly commit her, so she took her home.

Davis called to confirm that Charley had been successfully committed, and when she learned that she had not, she called 911, requesting help transporting Charley to a psychiatric facility.

Within 15 minutes of the phone call, Michelle said, two El Police officers arrived at the Tennen home in West El Paso.

According to Title 7 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, a peace officer can place a person under emergency detention if the officer has reason to believe that person is mentally ill and poses a danger to others or is at risk of self-harm, regardless of the person's age.

The peace officer, the law states, can make this decision either "from a representation of a credible person" or "on the basis of the conduct of the apprehended person or the circumstances under which the apprehended person is found."

Speaking to Channel 9-KTSM in July, El Paso police spokesperson Sgt. Enrique Carrillo said that Charley did not meet the criteria for emergency transport.

Carrillo declined to comment further on the case.

When it became clear that the officers would not transport Charley, Michelle asked the them to go into Charley’s room and bring her Charley’s supply of medication, but the officers again told her they would not intervene.

“The officer said to me, ‘She looks like a responsible young lady and she’s going to be 18 soon. There’s no reason to take her medication away from her.’ ”

The following morning, Charley spoke over the phone with Davis, upset over what she viewed as a breach of trust. She again denied being suicidal.

That evening, Charley inserted a lethal dose of pain medication into her feeding tube while her mother was downstairs.

Crisis Intervention Team fits into calls for police reform

The Border Network for Human Rights led a coalition of over a dozen community organizations in June, filing a petition calling for immediate changes to the Police Department. The petitions sought to address what the group sees as a persistent lack of accountability and transparency in the department.

Fernando Garcia, the founder and executive director of the network, sees the introduction of the Crisis Intervention Unit as an important but insufficient step toward police reform.

"I think they don't have enough personnel," he said. "I believe that whatever the city has done and the Police Department has done in terms of the Crisis Intervention Unit has been too little, too late."

Garcia said he would like to see the unit’s staff and funding expanded, including the introduction of unarmed crisis response teams, comprised solely of mental health professionals, for situations in which the use of force is not necessary.

West-Central city Rep. Alexsandra Annello has been a longtime supporter of the CIT program, and is disappointed that it has not been expanded.

Annello is pushing for the city to fund emergency mental health resources to allow 911 callers to speak to a mental health professional over the phone who could help de-escalate situations and get in touch with the CIT Unit directly, circumventing the police dispatch process.

Michelle suggested a similar idea for improving mental health resources in El Paso.

“When you phone 911 right now, they ask you, ‘Police, ambulance or fire?’ ” she said. “There should be a fourth category for mental health.”

Ideally, the city would pair a clinician with every police officer, “but that’s not financially possible I think,” Annello said.

The Police Department's CIT program is funded through a combination of city, county, state and private funds. Annello said she has pushed for more funding from the city’s budget, but has not received enough support from other council members.

East-Central city Rep. Cassandra Hernandez said she supports more CIT funding through grants for the Police Department.

“Like any nonprofit or any private organization, they can use public dollars to leverage and draw down private dollars or additional federal and state dollars,” she said.

When it comes to city funds, she said, “if there’s going to be more dollars being infused into a program, then I need to see specific goals and benchmarks and plans in order to scale the program.”

She said that the City Council has not received any such plans from the department.

The other six members of the El Paso City Council did not return requests for comment.

Teen 'would have grown up to do something wonderful'

After her husband's death, Michelle purchased a double cemetery plot, expecting to one day be interred next to him, “never ever dreaming that my baby would be beside him.”

She started a GoFundMe campaign, which has so far raised over $8,000, which she hopes will help cover funeral expenses and help her start a foundation in Charley's honor that will advocate for better mental health resources.

She said she has hired a lawyer and plans to file a formal complaint against the Police Department.

Though her final months were defined by suffering, Michelle remembers her daughter as quick-witted, artistic and caring toward others.

After her diagnosis, Charley taught herself how to use her sister’s sewing machine and created dozens of “tubey pads,” small, brightly colored fabric rings that fit between the plastic of her feeding tube and her skin in order to prevent chafing. Some she kept and others she mailed to other children with similar illnesses.

“She would have grown up to do something wonderful,” Michelle said, “if we could have just gotten her through this phase."

Resources

GoFundMe for Charley Tennen: gofundme.com/f/Lost-My-Husband-and-Daughter-Charley

• If you or someone you know is suicidal, please visit The Suicide Prevention Lifeline at suicidepreventionlifeline.org or call 1-800-273-8255.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Girl's suicide fuels mother's campaign for better mental health help from El Paso police

___

(c)2020 the El Paso Times (El Paso, Texas)

Visit the El Paso Times (El Paso, Texas) at www.elpasotimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.