How has State College changed the way it responds to mental health calls after the Osagie shooting?

Five years after Osaze Osagie was killed by a State College police officer during a mental health call, a program has changed the way the department responds to such calls, and leaders see the potential for expansion in the future.

Grant funding used to jump-start the only social work program within a police department in Centre County is set to expire by the end of the month, but borough police Chief John Gardner said his department is “fully committed to picking this program up and fully funding it.”

“I see extreme value in this program and I would like to see it expanded, but not at the expense of cutting officers to do it. I think we can do it with maintaining our current staffing of sworn officers and add a second social worker,” Gardner said. “I think we can do both. We have to do both. Our community benefits when we have it.”

The addition of the program came in the aftermath of the March 2019 police killing of Osagie, a 29-year-old who was shot in the middle of a mental health crisis when he charged at officers with a knife in a narrow hallway.

His death touched off conversations about policing, race and mental health. His family’s lawsuit against the borough was dismissed in November by a federal judge who wrote the officers are not mental health professionals and could not be held liable for “failing to be something they are not.”

After the police department was awarded a $150,000 grant, licensed social worker Amanda Mittan was hired in June 2022. Since then, she has handled more than 700 referrals for assistance. That’s an average of more than one referral per day, not factoring in weekends or time off.

Her responsibilities are vast. She’s able to give officers more information about people than they’d normally receive, but also plays a crucial role in following up after someone’s initial interaction with police.

Gardner praised his officers for their ability to talk with people who are in the middle of a crisis, but acknowledged consistently following up with them can sometimes require “hours and hours of your time that officers really don’t have.”

All but five of the department’s 59 sworn officers have received Crisis Intervention Team training, which Gardner has said is the “gold standard” for law enforcement. The group is made of the department’s newest officers and all are expected to be trained by June.

Now, Mittan serves as the department’s hub.

“She is a huge asset,” her supervisor Lt. Chad Hamilton said. “We have incident after incident that we can prove that.”

Not each of the borough’s roughly 60 police officers immediately supported the program, especially some of the department’s veteran officers. Mittan conceded she did not immediately feel accepted.

She said some of the pushback was rooted in the unknown, as well as some of the stereotypes that come with working in the profession — it’s not all powwows and talking about feelings, she said.

Hamilton described it as “two cultures coming together.” He said it took about four to six months to get complete buy-in, a statement Mittan appeared to agree with.

Some of the officers who were most hesitant, Hamilton said, are now the ones that utilize the program the most.

“Two things cops hate: We hate change and we hate the way things are,” Hamilton said. “Police officers would complain about having mental health calls because that’s what we do. One out of probably every two calls is a mental health call. ‘Why are we doing this? We’re not mental health workers.’ And then we bring in the social worker — ‘She’s not a cop. Why are we doing this?’

“At this point, I can say there’s not an officer here that we could pull in that’s going to say ‘No.’ This is a huge benefit to us.”

Mittan said much of her day is spent making sure people are connected with community resources. Sometimes that’s a daily endeavor, but other times she said she receives and responds to messages in a matter of minutes.

When she’s called to assist officers, Mittan arrives unarmed and in plain clothes rather than a traditional police uniform. Her polo reads “SOCIAL WORKER” on her right shoulder.

But, being available 24/7 is an impossible task. It’s perhaps no surprise Mittan — one of two 2023 Crisis Intervention Team Officers of the Year — said she’d “absolutely” like to see the department expand.

“If you can’t roll with the changes in law enforcement in 2024 you need to get out because you’re not going to be effective,” Hamilton said. “There’s a lot of social changes, there’s a lot of things changing in the profession and if you can’t keep up with that it’s time to get out.”