Mental health task force pursues solutions for law enforcement issues

BANGOR – When Timothy Lever allegedly broke into a Coombs Street home and attacked the owner in April of last year, he hadn’t taken his anti-psychotic medication for nearly two weeks, according to his attorney.

Three days later, after Lever’s release from custody on burglary charges, the delusional man was shot three times by police outside a French Street home after allegedly charging at officers with a wooden stake.

It’s a situation that police and corrections officials, both of whom have limited access to mental health services, dread.

“Police contacts with some of the mentally ill are the most complex, difficult and dangerous contacts we make,” Bangor police Lt. Peter Arno told members of the Region III Adult Mental Health Task Force Implementation Group, a committee created by Maine Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services Commissioner Lynn Duby and charged with designing plans to improve existing services for the mentally ill.

The committee on Wednesday held a public hearing at Bangor City Hall on the delivery of mental health services to those with mental illnesses who run afoul of the law. At the forum, several police and jail officials pointed to the success of a Bangor program in which a mental health caseworker rides along with police and evaluates a suspect on the spot and recommends an appropriate placement.

Lawmakers this session may look to expand the 2-year-old program, which now includes eight positions throughout the state, according to committee member and state Rep. Pat Blanchette, D-Bangor.

But Blanchette, who also serves on the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee, said the state’s budget woes likely would force the committee to scale back the pending legislation, which once included a $525,000 plan to put mental health caseworkers in each of the state’s 15 county jails for 16 hours a day.

Despite the cuts, Blanchette said the relationship between local law enforcement, corrections and mental health service providers must be improved to ensure the welfare of those who, because of their mental illness, may unknowingly break the law.

“The issue is not the crime,” Blanchette said. “It has to do with the illness that made the person do the crime.”

In Lever’s case, the illness is reportedly schizophrenia, his Bangor attorney, John Gause, told a judge in a makeshift courtroom at the hospital where his client recovered from his gunshot wounds. At the hearing, Lever entered pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity in both the Coombs Street and French Street burglaries.

The Attorney General’s Office later cleared the Bangor officer of any wrongdoing in the shooting.

The case against Lever is set to go before Maine Superior Court Justice Nancy Mills sometime in July.

In the meantime, Lever waits for his court date in a residential care facility, a more appropriate placement for his normally docile client than the county jail, said Gause, who told the court that this client actually thought he was helping the homeowners he allegedly attacked.

Situations involving mentally ill suspects such as Lever are not uncommon in the city, where police estimate one-third of their calls involve a suspect with a mental illness.

Penobscot County Deputy District Attorney Mike Roberts said Wednesday that Lever’s case actually was one of the easier cases from a prosecutor’s prospective.

“There isn’t much disagreement about his disability or the state of his mental health,” Roberts said, stressing that Lever’s responsibility for the alleged crimes still would have to be decided by a judge.

Before his placement at a residential care facility, Lever spent a short time at the Penobscot County Jail, where officials estimate 20 percent of the 165 inmates are being treated for some form of mental illness.

Jail administrator Lt. Cheryl Gallant told the committee that the number rises to 40 percent when one includes diagnosed substance abusers.

Gallant said the overcrowded jail, which has four hours of mental health coverage each day, could benefit from the “telemedicine” pilot program, in which psychiatric professionals at an area hospital are able to observe a prisoner from a remote location and potentially offer an initial diagnosis.

Other recommendations of the committee are likely to include more mental health training for law enforcement officials and a uniform program to ensure suspects receive needed treatment after their release from custody.