Issuing Someone A Psychiatric Review After They’ve Committed An Alleged Crime

GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Miss. (WCBI)- A suspect’s mental health can play a big role in a criminal case.

In fact, as we’ve seen recently in Tupelo, departments will sometimes request a psychiatric review before making an arrest.

The mental evaluations are usually given whenever a major crime has occurred.

Ackerman Police Chief Tim Cook has 20 years of experience in law enforcement, and has worked cases where a potential suspect needed to be given a mental assessment after committing an alleged crime.

“Normally if you arrest a person like that, it’s just the way they’re acting, it seems to be off or just from what they tell you,” said Chief Cook.

When those situations happen, investigators call on mental health experts, and Veronica Harrison is usually on the receiving end of those calls.

“What we’ll do is do a basic mental status exam,” said Harrison, Coordinator of the Mobile Crisis Emergency Response Team (M-CeRT) at Community Counseling Services. “We will talk to the individual, see what’s going on, see if there’s some underlining issue, if the individual may have already had a mental health diagnosis.”

Harrison said there are few things she looks for during an evaluation.

“Paranoia, delusions, hysteria, any type of psychosis that would show up in an immediate face-to-face contact,” she said.

She said her assessments can take up to an hour.

When it’s complete, the licensed professional counselor sends her report to the responding agency.

The assessments are critical because they could help determine the next step in an investigation.

“Based on what we get from that individual, we will either say this person is OK, go ahead and do whatever you got to do to law-enforcement,” said Harrison. “Or we’ll say this individual needs further examination, I recommend this individual go to a hospital to be examined by a psychiatrist and have a lengthy mental status exam.”

A murder case out of Tupelo is the most recent example of this happening after 19-year-old Michael Sullivan was accused of killing his father.

Sullivan was given a psychiatric review before police arrested him.

Harrison and Chief Cook both believe giving that a mental evaluation in the beginning of an investigation is beneficial to both law enforcement and the potential suspect.

“It’s good on the suspect’s behalf because if something really is wrong with them then they will go and they will get the treatment they need there,” said Chief Cook

“If possible, it’s always best to be done on the front end,” said Harrison. “We’re at a point right now, especially in Mississippi and all other states, where people are in our jails who have mental health issues, but because nobody knew in the beginning, those people are sitting there and it’s clogging up the system. It’s clogging up the judicial system, they are not getting the help they need which is unfair to them, and it’s unfair to the people that are housing them because they are not equipped to deal with mental health issues.”

If it’s decided that a person does need to be further evaluated, Chief Cook said that person will continue to stay in custody until the assessment is complete.

Harrison said the Mobile Crisis Emergency Response Team is on call 24/7 to administer these mental evaluations whenever they’re needed.

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