Law enforcement officers gather at the Tri County Technology Center in Bartlesville in mid-November for training on crisis intervention involving mentally ill people.
For the mentally ill and emotionally troubled, encounters with law enforcement officers and incarceration in jails pose a risk of death.
A spike in fatalities in Oklahoma jails this year and several confrontations between police and the mentally ill since 2014 have raised questions about whether officers and jailers are sufficiently trained to deal with people with mental health problems. Training data shows it is a special concern in rural areas.
During 2015, at least seven of the 25 fatal police shootings in Oklahoma, or 22 percent, involved people who exhibited signs of mental illness, acco...
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