Mentally Ill Get Jail, Not Help Changing Laws, Overcrowding Leave Police With Few Options

On a recent night, an elderly woman took a wrong turn and drove down the Hayden Lake boat ramp until her front wheels touched the water.

Sheriff’s deputies unhappily arrested her and took her to jail.

“She doesn’t need to be in jail,” Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.

The woman believes people hide in her attic. She once complained that she and baby Jesus were kidnapped by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

“She’s mentally ill,” he said. “But there’s no room in the inn.”

Such situations have become typical.

When area police pick up unstable people who pose a threat to themselves or others, they increasingly find no place to take them but jail.

Population growth, policy changes and a new state law means Kootenai Medical Center is often swamped with mentally ill patients, said hospital spokesman Mike Regan.

That means sheriff’s deputies must drive people to Spokane hospitals. Post Falls police recently asked a victims’ rights volunteer to stay with a mentally ill patient. Coeur d’Alene police last month jailed a woman for firing her gun at a wall after claiming she had electronic sensors in her abdomen.

In 1992, Idaho legislators outlawed jailing mentally disturbed residents who committed no crime. Attempted suicide is not a crime, so all people rescued from a suicide attempt must be taken to a hospital, Wolfinger said.

“We’re quite concerned,” Post Falls Chief Cliff Hayes said.

The elderly woman who drove into the lake did not have a driver’s license. The gun-toting woman was arrested for shooting at an occupied dwelling.

Since KMC is the only place in North Idaho with a secure psychiatric ward, it’s used by law enforcement from Bonners Ferry to Plummer. Add the citizens who admit themselves and the hospital’s six secure rooms are full three days a week, said Carmen Brochu, hospital vice president for patient care.

Secure rooms have doors locked from the outside, beds with restraints and no loose objects. Hospital officials couldn’t say how many patients stayed in secure rooms last year, but the Kootenai County sheriff’s department alone brought in 42 - 14 percent more than in 1994.

Until recently, hospital officials held patients in regular rooms when secure ones were full. Psychiatrists said it was dangerous.

“We’ve had them throw chairs, break through windows and bat down doors during psychotic episodes,” Brochu said.

Hospital and county officials hope to work out a temporary solution in the next month, she said.

One option includes hiring guards to stand outside unsecured rooms. But the hospital is reluctant to give up the space or swallow the cost.

Patients sometimes can go to private hospitals, but 90 percent of involuntary committals from police are people with little money and no insurance, Brochu said.

“There really is no quick fix,” she said.

, DataTimes