‘A Great Move In The Right Direction’: Former Suffolk County Sheriff On New De-escalation Rules For BPD Officers

Last week, Acting Boston Police Commissioner Gregory Long issued a new set of guidelines for officers dealing with people suffering mental health crises.

Former Suffolk County sheriff Andrea Cabral joined GBH’s Boston Public Radio on Thursday to weigh in on the new rules, which she called “a great move in the right direction.”

“It’s really important that police have de-escalation tools, and alternatives to direct confrontation that is likely to escalate into a deadly force situation,” she said.

The new framework gives police officers more guidance around the execution of what are known as Section 12 orders. Under Massachusetts state law, police officers can commit or hospitalize anyone posing an imminent threat of harm to themselves or others.

But what Section 12 doesn’t lay out is a framework for how the process ought to be executed. These new rules seek to change that for Boston’s cops.

“I’m very hopeful that it’s a trend,” Cabral said. “It’s just smart. It’s smart policing, and it’s good public safety."

Under the new policy, which went into effect immediately, officers are instructed to exercise calm while performing mental health wellness checks. The rules also formalize the involvement of the Boston Emergency Services Team, or BEST, which is a group of five counselors trained in de-escalation. BEST has already been working extensively with the BPD.

According to data from a Washington Post database on fatal police shootings dating back to 2015, 12 of the 49 Massachusetts killings — around 29% — involved someone who showed signs of mental illness.

“You can’t respond to situations that turn, ultimately, into deadly situations where the person who is really the person in need of help winds up dead or seriously injured, and say ‘well, we’re not really equipped to do this kind of work,’” Cabral said. “And at the same time be the ones that’re always showing up to do this kind of work without any tools on how to deal with it.”

Andrea Cabral is the former sheriff of Suffolk County and the former Massachusetts secretary of public safety. She is currently CEO of the cannabis company Ascend.