Great Falls Connection

    Fairfax County is 391 square miles, and has only four co-responder program teams to cover the entire area, and they do not work 24/7. The program will be expanding.
  

It has been over three years since Fairfax County initiated its pilot co-responder program intended to help police respond to mental health emergency calls. Some county residents are raising multiple concerns about the program. The program is a collaborative partnership between the Fairfax County Police Department and the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board (CSB) and pairs a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) trained police officer with a CSB Crisis Intervention Specialist to respond to public safety calls related to behavioral health issues. The Fairfax County Co-Responder Program is not yet  fully funded and staffed.

"The program has grown from one team in 2021 to now having "four teams of co-responders as well as over 600 sworn officers who are CIT-trained," said a FCPD spokesperson in an email to The Connection on Nov. 1. More than four teams are needed for the program to be fully staffed 24/7 and equitably, like the county’s police and fire and rescue services. 

Kevin Davis, the police chief of Fairfax County, said in an Oct. 20, 2023 letter to the Board of Supervisors that the program would need significantly more than “eight co-responder units required to maintain around-the-clock coverage in the community.” With a population of 1,186 million people, if Fairfax County were a city, it would rank as the tenth largest in the nation, and it covers 391 square miles. 

"Mental health should not be a risk factor for the use of deadly force," Vernon C. Walton said in a Nov. 4 email to The Connection. Walton made this statement as a community member and one of the ten former members of Fairfax County's Police Reform Matrix Working Group on May 12, 2023. He is also the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Vienna. Walton said he is concerned, and that the co-responder program has issues that require resolution.

The Washington Post Fatal Force database, 2015-2024, contains records of every person shot by an on-duty police officer in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 2015, with the capacity to refine search results by using filters, including mental illness-related only. Open to the public, the database is updated regularly as fatal shootings are reported and as facts emerge about individual cases, according to the Post. 

From Jan. 1, 2015, to Oct. 31, 2024, after receiving calls requesting assistance, Fairfax County Police Department on-duty officers shot and killed two people experiencing  mental health crises, according to the database. The Co-Responder Program was in operation but not fully staffed. In the U.S., 1 in 20 adults experience serious mental illness each year, according to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, citing a Samhsa.gov study.

Data on the victims by the Post:

• July 7, 2022, Jasper Aaron Lynch, a 26-year-old white man armed with a bottle, was killed in [his] house in McLean, Va., body cam footage. The footage confirms Lynch dropped the bottle seconds before the officer fatally shot him.

• Sept. 16, 2024, Sydney Wilson, a 33-year-old Black woman armed with a knife, was killed in [her] apartment building in Reston, Va.; body cam footage.

Chief Kevin Davis said during the Sept. 16, 2024, press conference to release the body camera footage of the Wilson fatal police shooting that the county’s co-responder program is ”normally a clinician inside of a police car with the police officer. … Year to date there are already well over 2,200 calls for service.” They are routinely dispatched to calls involving a person in a mental or behavioral health crisis, according to Davis. They can also self-dispatch if they hear a suspicious call and believe it may involve a mental or behavioral health crisis.  

Fairfax County’s co-responder program expanded in 2023 to seven days a week, from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m., said a spokesperson for FCPD.

Professional training for behavioral health clinicians surpasses FCPD officer training. FCPD’s officer training consists of the 40-hour Crisis Intervention Team (CIT)  program on how to respond to people experiencing a mental health crisis and how to de-escalate the situation. Davis said during the Sept. 16 press conference that 59 percent of the department’s sworn officers are CIT-trained. Fairfax County officers also take a 12-hour ICAT: Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics course for situations involving persons who are unarmed or are armed with weapons other than firearms and who may be experiencing a mental health or other crisis. As of June 2024, Fairfax County police said in May that their entire department had received ICAT training.

Even though the annual number of all mental illness-related fatal police shootings in the state has decreased from 261 in 2015 to 136 this year as of Oct. 31, according to the Washington Post Fatal Force database, 2015-2024, individuals across Virginia with mental illness, including Fairfax County, continue to be shot and killed by police following a 911 or 988 call for assistance. Such a demonstrable role of mental illness, especially when the person is in crisis, leading to the use of deadly force by law enforcement against them can indicate the need to consider rethinking the type of response and policy protocols. and who has the "first touch" at the scene with the individual.

Walton said that families should "not have any pause about calling for assistance when family members are in crisis."

If the behavioral health clinician cannot physically co-respond to a mental health assistance dispatched call, could virtual or phone advice benefit responding police officers in the current Fairfax County co-responder model? Could this provide key advice in determining if and how an officer or officers could respond to an incident, whether to wait, or proceed? A behavioral health clinician was not available to respond to either the Wilson case or Lynch case, Davis said. 

Restonstrong is a 501(c)(3) community action group co-founded by Sarah Selvaraj-D'souza, executive director. She, like Walton, has concerns about Fairfax County's Co-Responder Program. Selvaraj-D'souza posted, "This is a system failure yet again that ends in tragedy. … It's time we treat mental health with the same urgency as physical health."

Selvaraj-D'souza's post states that the video footage of the Wilson shooting was "disturbing, to say the least," and their hearts were "breaking for both the victim and the officer involved … . Restonstrong has been advocating for a dedicated mobile mental health crisis unit for Reston since 2021. We don't need wellness checks to end in death. Supervisor Walter Alcorn, please consider a dedicated mental health crisis unit for Hunter Mill [District].”

A third Fairfax County resident raises concerns about the Fairfax County Co-Responder Program. Adrian Steel, a former member of the Fairfax County Police Reform Matrix Working Group, which disbanded in 2023 and the first chairman of the Police Civilian Review Panel, discussed challenges and potential actions regarding the county's co-responder program, primarily in light of the Wilson case. He questioned several aspects of the program, including the police department's knowledge of an incident involving Wilson the day before her fatal shooting, as well as why the officer was alone and did not have a Taser or other less-lethal options available.

According to FCPD General Order 540 – Use of Force, “officers shall carry their ECW at all times. …  Exceptions may be made by commanders based upon safety factors relative to mission objectives or where a sufficient number of functional ECWs are not currently available to equip all operational officers within their purview."

Steel emphasized the importance of examining the co-responder structure and scrutinizing the dispatch process to ascertain whether the call went to the 988 crisis line or 911. He discussed the police chief's lack of neutrality, the chief interjecting his opinion during his statements when releasing the Wilson case body-worn camera footage. The transcript shows several instances during which Davis opines. For example, Davis commented, "My (12:33) personal thoughts about, 'Would a co-responder have, "made a difference'? I'm not too sure that it (12:38) would have." He says the comment before the criminal and administrative investigations into the incident and the review by the county's Office of the Independent Police Auditor. 

Supervisor Rodney Lusk, chair of the Board of Supervisors Safety and Security Committee, said on Nov. 8 in an email to The Connection that he had the opportunity last week to ride with a co-responder team and see firsthand how they operate. 

"Since Supervisor Alcorn and I proposed the Board Matter that initiated this program, I have always believed that it was the right thing to do, and seeing them in action has only reinforced that conviction. I am extremely proud that the Board of Supervisors not only approved but has continued to support this program, which has gained widespread support. This includes expanding the program to include more teams and extended hours of service."

Lusk said he will continue to look for ways to support the co-responder program in coordination with the Fairfax County Police Department and the Community Services Board to ensure its continued success.

“The Co-Responder Program aligns with other Fairfax County initiatives, including the Diversion First continuum of services. The Co-Responder Program also aligns with the Marcus Alert. Virginia law requires 9-1-1, crisis call centers, law enforcement, and behavioral health agencies to work together to improve responses to individuals experiencing behavioral health crises,” according to the county web page devoted to What is the Fairfax County Co-Responder Program?

Sample: Three Response Programs in the U.S.

Mental health leads, not police, and at a savings.

Models of how police respond to mental health crises vary in Virginia. In the four 2024 Virginia mental health crisis fatal police shooting cases as of Oct. 30,  three police departments, Fairfax County, Richmond, and Prince William County implemented similar models to Fairfax County's  Co-Responder Program.  

A significant model difference is evident in the fourth Virginia jurisdiction, the City of Newport News, Va. In 2021, the city launched its CARE program to provide initial crisis intervention services for those experiencing mental or behavioral health issues. Unlike Fairfax County's Co- Responder teams, CARE teams consist of paramedics and mental health professionals. Police respond also but will only sometimes take the lead.

A program similar to that in the City of Newport News is an alternative behavioral health response to police called  CAHOOTS in Eugene, Oregon, founded in 1989. COHOOTS stands for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets. The responders are unarmed, consisting of an unarmed mental health team, a medic and a crisis worker, who provide crisis intervention 24/7 and move as a team.  The program is "staffed by White Bird Clinic personnel using City of Eugene vehicles. The relationship has been in place for nearly 30 years. The team answers suicide intervention and overdose calls, welfare checks and most of the time without police backup. “CAHOOTS mobile crisis response is being recognized as an important and innovative public/private partnership delivering crisis and community health first response effectively and at significant cost savings,” according to its webpage guide.

Denver started its own version of CAHOOTS, called STAR, the  Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) program. "[It} is an alternative response team that includes behavioral health clinicians and paramedics to engage individuals experiencing mental health distress and substance use disorders. STAR responds to low-risk calls where there are no significant safety concerns. STAR is a civilian emergency response dispatched by Denver 9-1-1." according to  Denver.org. City leaders from Oakland, Olympia, Washington and other places are considering similar pilot programs.

Fatal Police Shooting in McLean Two Years Ago

Family’s call for crisis help results in tragedy.

    A Fairfax County police officer shot and killed 26-year-old Jasper Aaron Lynch on June 7, 2022. The behavioral health clinician from the Fairfax County co-responder program who had responded earlier in the day was unavailable to return a second time that evening to respond to the mental health emergency.
  

Using filtered matches from the Washington Post's Fatal Force, The Connection searched for any other fatal police shootings of individuals experiencing mental health crises in Fairfax County from 2015 to the present, other than the Wilson case. The results revealed only one other case in the nine years. On July 7, 2022, an on-duty police officer shot and killed Jasper Aaron Lynch in McLean

The video of the fatal shooting shown at the  Aug. 4, 2022 press conference begins with the 911 redacted call on July 7, 2022. “911; what is your emergency?”  [A caller gives his location, which is redacted] “We had an incident earlier where we called. We have one of the family members here is having a bit of a psychotic break. There were a couple of officers here earlier, and they weren’t able to find him; he was upstairs. He’s here now. So he is throwing some right stuff now. So, if you could get someone dispatched here, that would be helpful.”

The end of the video shows that Aaron Lynch, a 26-year-old white man, had been armed with a bottle at his home in McLean, Virginia, just moments before an officer fatally shot him. The officer who shot Lynch had CIT training, said Davis. The county's Co-Responder Program's intervention specialist from Sharon Bulova Center for Community Health responded to the home earlier that evening. Davis said in the Aug. 4, 2022 video that the program had a single clinician who rode with a police officer on specific days and times of the week; however, the clinician was unavailable when the officer made a second visit to the house (20:33).

Nearly two years later, on April 5, 2024, Commonwealth's Attorney Steve T. Descano (D) issued a five-page report that said all five shots by Officer George were legally justifiable. Three officers who responded to the second call "acted in an objectively reasonable manner, based upon the totality of the circumstances."

On June 12, 2024, Patrick Winston Lynch, as Personal Representative and Administrator of the Estate of Jasper Aaron Lynch, filed a wrongful death lawsuit for $10 million in the Circuit Court for Fairfax County. The defendants are Kevin Davis, three officers, and John Does1-3 defendants, "employees of FCPD charged with the responsibilities of training and developing training methods and, policies and procedures for the FCPD regarding (1) the use of deadly force and (2) responding to individuals suffering mental health crises, and with properly supervising the Defendant members of the FCPD." 

The plaintiff alleged that "the officers did not communicate with anyone who had specific mental health training or wait for someone with that background to arrive at the Lynch family home ... [and that] Officer George fatally shoots Aaron, who was unarmed and restrained while attempting to flee. When the officers entered the home, despite his knowledge that he would be interacting with an individual suffering a mental health crisis, Officer George chose not to carry his FCPD-issued taser, which he instead left in the trunk of his patrol car."