Members of local law enforcement, first responders and community services board learn crisis intervention through Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training. Mike Tripp/The News Leader

In the video above, Staunton police officer Tyler Miller talks about the intense training police undergo to learn how to handle crisis situations. 

Officers are tested in pairs. They're removed from the main training room while trainers prep the new scenario. The officers then come in to respond to the scenario, often knowing very little about the situation outside of what they might hear in a dispatch call.

"When you're back there in the room and they're telling you what you're going into, obviously the nerves hit," he says. "It's the walking-into-the-not-known...being in law enforcement you do that on a daily basis."

 In the moment, they try to use some of the tools they've been given during the weeklong training.

"You rely on how you've been trained," Miller says. Some of that training focuses on remaining calm and communicative while also keeping an eye out for any details that will help the officer understand the situation and its context. 

That can mean mental illness. It could also mean an armed and dangerous person.

"Not a whole lot of people realize how many people are affected" by mental illness, says Miller. Getting enough information from the subject or from others present can have a lot to do with how a tense situation is resolved. "We do our best; we try to come up with the best resolution for that person."

In one scenario, the relative of a person behaving strangely arrives after the officers.n The relative provides information about that person being "off their meds," which gives the responding officers additional context for helping the person.

In the scenario Miller and a co-trainee encountered, involving a woman walking along the side of a busy road with no awareness of the traffic, he was quick to notice that the woman had a bloody tissue stuffed in her sweatshirt sleeve. 

"if you don't pick up on some of that stuff, it could cost you your life."

From the officer's perspective, dealing with the details involves ensuring the safety of a subject -- in this case, a woman who was walking into traffic even as officers spoke with her -- and the safety of the officers.

Miller agrees. "You know, I want to help people, I really do. But I also want to go home and see my family at the end of the day."

Read all the stories in the They Didn't Shoot series:

Main story: They didn't shoot

Intense training: They didn't shoot: Training and talk help avoid deadly force

Video footage reveals tense encounter:: 'Shoot me please! I'm not going back to jail!' A case of non-lethal force

Use-of-force report: Catch poles and patience break up dogs fighting around baby: non-lethal force

How we got the data for this story: They held their fire. And some data.






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