GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — He didn’t think he would need it so soon.
The day after Michigan State Police Trooper Evan Mize graduated from a crisis intervention class, he found himself using the tools he had just been taught as he talked a mentally ill man down from a sign over US-131 in Grand Rapids.
“You could tell that this individual was in crisis,” Mize said.
Once the man came down, Mize said, he was “aggressive.”
“Instead of going hands on with that individual, we utilized the training and techniques we were taught in the crisis intervention training program,” he said.
That meant understanding what was happening from the man’s point of view and talking to calm him down.
“We didn’t want to have that turn into a use-of-force scenario,” Mize said. “That doesn’t help anybody.”
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