- April 26, 2024
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It happened 486 times this year, and 46 times in the past 30 days: Someone called the Sheriff’s Office because a friend, loved one or acquaintance just wasn’t right.
Maybe they’d spoken about suicide. Maybe they were refusing to take medications that they needed.
Maybe they’d threatened someone.
Whatever the individual’s issues, they’re generally more a matter for mental health professionals than law enforcement officers.
But the officers have to get them somewhere they can receive care, and in Flagler County, that takes time and money: The nearest facilities that can receive people involuntarily committed for observation under the state’s Baker Act are the Stewart Marchman Act Behavioral Healthcare and Halifax Hospital, both in Daytona Beach.
“It’s about 30 minutes down and 30 back, plus getting somebody settled in the facility,” Flagler County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Bob Weber said. “And they’re not unusual occurrences. We can get several of those a day, where we’re called to assess somebody.”
All together, those calls can take two or three hours, straining a sheriff’s office that is already understaffed, Weber said. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office no longer has deputies dedicated to handling Baker Act calls, so the calls go to whomever is available to take them, often deputies out on patrol.
“As an agency, I believe that we tend to err on the side of caution, and if there is the slightest chance that the person may be a danger to themselves or others, is in need of assistance or is unable to make that decision for themselves, we will take them into protective custody and transport them to a facility for further evaluation,” Weber said.
But at its regular meeting Dec. 16 at the Government Services Building on State Road 100, the Flagler County Commission will discuss a grant — $100,000 for one year — for a program that helps prevent some of those kinds of calls.
The mental health jail diversion program, run through Stewart Marchman, helps ensure that people identified by law enforcement officers as at-risk remain on their medications and receive other mental health support The program is losing state funding, and the county earmarked $100,000 in this year’s budget to keep it running.
The county has also applied for a competitive state grant of $1.2 million, to be disbursed over three years, that could be used to provide a local place for law enforcement officers to bring people for supervision under the Baker Act, Stewart Marchman Behavioral Healthcare CEO Chet Bell said.
The state will let the county know if it will be awarded the grant at the end of the month.
Data from the Stewart Marchman Act reported in an August Palm Coast Observer story showed that arrests for people in the mental health jail diversion program dropped about 77% after staff intervened to help keep them in treatment.
