Boulder County family is struggling to get mental health help because of the Police Accountability Act

Maria has cared for her brother John for decades, taking care of his housing and medical care. Now she is at a breaking point. She plays a video on her phone to show why.

“Okay, so I came to his house to bring some groceries. You can see he’s pretty disheveled,” Maria said.

In the video, John walks towards her car. His coat is torn, his feet are bare.

KUNC is using first names only in this story because Maria lives and works in Longmont and doesn’t want her clients to know about these struggles.

Garbled screams can be heard in the background of the video.

“He’s just starting to get angry. “So if he gets like that, I’ll just leave,” Maria said. “He never hurt me, but I’m not going to wait for him to hit my car or whatever.”

Maria’s brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his 20s. Since then, she says, he has cycled to the shelter and to treatment. Lately he has become more manic and regularly harasses local business owners and patrons.

Over the years, Maria managed to get him examined at the hospital by successfully applying several times court-ordered mental health evaluation. To qualify, an applicant must demonstrate that the person is at risk of harming themselves or others or is unable to meet their basic needs, including showering and taking prescribed medications.

The sheriff’s office would receive that order and pick him up.

“I give them a key so they can open the door and ‘John, you’re going to the hospital,’ with their authority, you know, and they take him in,” Maria said.

At the hospital, John would be examined and possibly admitted for further treatment. But this year that process has changed.

“Now when they get him to open the door, they just ask him if he wants to leave, which of course he doesn’t,” Maria said.

Neither of the two orders she asked for this year put John in the hospital.

“I understand that this is very frustrating for the community”

“If the person is not willing to work with us, there is nothing we can do. And I understand that this is very frustrating for the community,” said Jason Oehlkers, chief of department at the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.

Oehlkers heads the civil division, which receives mental health orders. In the past, officers occasionally used minimal force to take people to the hospital on mental health evaluation orders.

But in January, a policy change went into effect: Mental health orders discourage deputies from using force, and if the situation escalates, they must leave office.

“I think around 2020 there was a big push to make some changes in state laws,” Oehlkers said.

The change was made through SB-217, Colorado’s police accountability law designed during the Black Lives Matter protests. It restricts the use of force and eliminates qualified immunity, which protected officers from being held personally liable for workplace incidents

“These changes have, in my opinion, taken away some of that authority. Which is fine. We are here to serve the community and if that is their wish, we will respect that,” Oehlkers said.

“You took away my last tool”

“No other county that I know of has interpreted 217 this way,” said Rep. Leslie Herod, a sponsor of the legislation. “Boulder County should continue to do the work people need from them to serve and protect, including intervening in these serious mental illnesses.”

Different communities handle mental health assessments in different ways, but forcing someone in crisis to go to the hospital is generally discouraged.

In Larimer County, the use of force to carry out a psychiatric order is permitted, but rare. In Arapahoe County, a spokesperson said that because of SB-217 and without clear guidance from the courts, circumstances often favor backtracking.

Herod says she and her colleagues, like Sen. Judy Amabile, whose district includes Boulder County, have offered to provide clarity in the past in relevant legislation that MPs have the power to intervene.

“I’m still completely open to working on this because we see a lack of willingness to cooperate in transitioning people into care,” Amabile said. “But it would also probably be better if we had more co-response, more social services, more people who could actually do this work that don’t necessarily show up as law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, people like Maria and John in Longmont live with the daily reality of serious mental illness. She still hasn’t been able to treat him and is considering applying for another psychiatric order.

“They took away my last tool and I don’t know what the future will hold,” she said.

Without a mental health evaluation, Maria has no idea how to stabilize her brother and return his medication.