MANKATO — The shooting by police of a man with a history of mental illness has brought a spotlight on training that officers receive to respond to a crisis involving a mentally unbalanced person.

Mankato officials say the city’s police force works closely with the mental health community and routinely deals with calls involving people with mental health issues. Those calls, they say, overwhelmingly end well.

But they say the recent case began and unfolded in such a violent and sudden way that police were forced to protect two victims and themselves.

“Our officers are trained at making assessments and taking a course of action that leads to a peaceful resolution,” City Manager Pat Hentges said.

Mankato Public Safety Director Jerry Huettl said that while he thinks the recent case was handled correctly, he believes it’s also an opportunity to review procedures.

“We always need to look at how we can do better, what new things we can do and what we should reinforce,” Huettl said. “It’s been a lot on my mind. I don’t think it is inappropriate for people to look at what we do and how we do it.”

Both men say the city’s police almost daily deal with people with mental illness.

“The vast majority of the thousands of incidents we are called to each year have a safe resolution. Often these cases (with mental illness) are masked in crime, alcohol, drugs, suicide attempts where officers have to act immediately to deter loss of life or protect others. That appears to be the situation in the recent case,” Hentges said.

Late on the night of Dec. 30, police were called by two women who said a naked man was in their apartment and was assaulting them. When two officers arrived, the two women were still in the apartment and the suspect, police say, was violent and enraged. Tasers were ineffective on the suspect and officers fought with the man for several minutes. Eventually, after the suspect attacked officers with a piece of metal and backed an officer up to a wall, the officer shot and killed him.

Sue Abderholden, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Minnesota, said there is a growing movement in Minnesota for more intense training for police in dealing with mental crises.

Crisis intervention teams are set up in Minneapolis and Rochester, and more officers around the state are being offered the training.

“Some people do mental health issue awareness training with police. This is more intense and they think about it as a team approach,” she said of the 40-hour training course.

The CIT concept came from the Memphis police department a few years ago. Minneapolis instituted it first in Minnesota and is beginning to help coordinate training for other departments.

Abderholden said the training provides officers information on the biological nature of mental illness, uses actors to provide different scenarios, provides techniques on de-escalating a situation, and offers other background to help officers recognize and respond to situations of an unstable suspect.

For example, she said officers often approach a tense scene by putting on an intimidating front to gain an advantage.

“Police are trained to ‘be big’ when they come in a room,” she said. “But if you’re dealing with someone psychotic, that’s throwing gas on the fire.”

Abderholden said police departments that use CIT training do not require officers to attend. “They want people who want to do it and who are looking for different ways to deal with things.”

Huettl said no Mankato officers have received CIT training yet. “It’s a relatively new concept. I know it is highly rated.

“It’s one of many things you look at. There are other methods out there, too.”

Hentges said the CIT training and other programs to intervene on behalf of people at risk are beneficial.

“A more organized effort than we have in the community would be great. The more resources we have the better.”

Hentges said that as a regional center with a large health care and social services network, Mankato does have a larger population of people with mental illness.

But Hentges and Huettl said full teams of crisis intervention officers is not practical in smaller cities.

“It becomes problematic, because of the on-call nature, you don’t have immediate access to CIT officers in a smaller community,” Hentges said.

Hentges said the local Human Services Department and other mental health professionals already work closely with police.

“We do bring people’s case worker or psychologist in in many cases to help with a person (police have contact with).”

He said police are most often the ones who show up when someone is in a crisis and officers first look for a way to keep things calm and get the help someone needs.

“Sometimes the officer can back out of the situation when someone is in crisis.”

But not always, he said.

“In the recent incident, you had a very violent, dangerous situation unfold here in seven minutes. That’s why we attempt to use non-lethal methods.”