He was in crisis when a Pierce County deputy shot him. It was a preventable tragedy | Opinion

How important is it for trained mental health professionals to be on the scene when someone needs it most?

Why should we do everything in our power to make sure cops aren’t alone and unprepared when they inevitably encounter someone experiencing extreme behavioral health distress?

Just look at the case of William “Billy” Langfitt IV.

Langfitt, as news stories have reminded us this week, was shot and killed by a Pierce County sheriff’s deputy in 2018. At the time, he was suffering what his girlfriend described to a 911 dispatcher as “a mental health crisis.” Langfitt was in the road, distraught, attempting to stop traffic near Graham by banging on passing cars and holding a photo of his late grandfather, which a responding officer and a witness mistook as a weapon. When he attempted to enter deputy Colby Edwards’ cruiser, Edwards fired 10 rounds — fatally wounding the 28-year-old, who died at the scene.

As the Seattle Times’ Mike Carter first reported, earlier this month a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Langfitt’s mother and father, alleging that Edwards used excessive force when he killed their son — and that the Sheriff’s Department suffered from improper training.

In a Feb. 7 ruling, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle found that Edwards acted reasonably and constitutionally, meeting the threshold for “qualified immunity” under the law. Settle also dismissed claims of poor training. An attorney representing the Langfitt family told the Times they plan to appeal Settle’s qualified immunity ruling.

Regardless of what happens in court from this point forward or your feelings about Settle’s ruling, here’s what’s unmistakably true:

If Langfitt had been met in his moment of crisis by a team that included a trained mental health professional, there’s a much better chance he’d still be alive today.

Those are the stakes, and why efforts to create and expand mental health crisis response teams — to either accompany police or replace them on known mental health distress calls — have gained steam in recent years.

If it’s possible to suss meaning and purpose from an unfathomable tragedy, Langfitt’s death should serve as a catalyst for change.

The same goes for the hundreds of police shootings every year in the United States involving people experiencing severe mental health issues.

Locally, we’ve taken several small steps in the right direction recently, providing a reason for hope.

In Tacoma, the City Council allocated $824,000 as part of its recently passed biennium budget to go toward the creation of a mental health crisis response team. Through a Tacoma Fire Department pilot project, the team of qualified behavioral health specialists will be tasked with responding to mental health crisis 911 calls, instead of police. Local advocates had sought $2 million in funding for the team.

Meanwhile, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department has announced staffing plans for its own mental health response program, which dates back to 2018. By spring, at least seven behavioral health professionals, hired and trained by MultiCare, will be on the street, responding to mental health crisis calls. In total, the department has funding for nine full-time positions — an increase from the roughly five co-responders the department has employed in recent years. Sheriff Ed Troyer recently told a community group in Key Peninsula that the team of co-responders, which have been difficult to hire, will help his deputies focus on calls they’re well-suited to handle and keep them out of situations they’re not. The behavioral health specialists will accompany Sheriff’s deputies on crisis calls, but KING 5 has reported that, in the future, a team may respond to some calls without law enforcement. Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. Darren Moss noted that the public cannot directly request a response from the mental health co-responder team.

Both of those measures represent good starts.

But just as the rehashed details of Langfitt’s death provide a reminder of what’s at stake this week, they also illustrate how much work remains to be done.

“It really takes a lot of pressure off our guys trying to resolve issues that we don’t have the skills to do,” Moss recently told the Peninsula Gateway when asked about the agency’s mental health response program.

Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

Sometimes, it’s a matter of life and death.

Clarification: This column has been updated to reflect that the Pierce County Sheriff’s mental-health co-responder team is being expanded, bringing it up to a total of nine funded positions. In the past, Sheriff Ed Troyer has inadvertently described the program as new, according to Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. Darren Moss.