Police officers are often present during the most painful moments of people’s lives. And that includes working with people struggling with a mental health emergency. In New Haven, the police department trains its officers in crisis prevention so they can guide residents through those moments with patience and compassion. WSHU's Randye Kaye sat down with Captain Michael Fumiatti to explore the Crisis Prevention program and its impact on the New Haven community.
MF: When people call 911, it most often is the worst moment of their life, and we, interestingly, are key pieces of that, and so we come, and we maintain safety, we come, and we restore order. I think foundationally that is what we do. My name is Michael Fumiatti. I work as a captain in the New Haven Police Department. Currently, I'm assigned to professional standards training and administration within the New Haven Police Department. I also am one of the co-directors for the Connecticut Alliance to Benefit Law Enforcement, which conducts all of our crisis intervention team training throughout the state of Connecticut.
WSHU: And I'm Randy Kaye, host of the podcast Good at Heart, where we speak with people who make the world better. When we think about police work, we often picture crime scenes and handcuffs, and sirens — but there's another side to the badge: one that's built on compassion and patience, and the ability to help people through some of the hardest moments of their lives. Today, I'll be talking with a police captain, specially trained in crisis intervention, and this conversation will offer a glimpse into the good work that often happens far from the headlines. So, my first question is, if you were to describe your job in this way, who do you help and how?
MF: That's a great question. I think that it's a very broad question, obviously, but I think, I think we help the people who need it the most. We help them in a number of different ways, and so I think when people think of the police department or a police department, they think of justice, hopefully, and so we help in people's worst day. Officers are continually going to people's worst days. But during those times, there's a whole lot that's done, as you talked about before, compassionately away from the headlines. I've watched officers do absolutely incredible things and care for people. We can go to someone who, you know, is frustrated because their neighbor's car is blocking their driveway and they can't get to work, and for them that is the most frustrating thing at the moment. We can also go to somebody who's just lost a loved one to gun violence. We show up to those scenes where violence is occurring. We restore order so that violence doesn't occur, at least for the short time that we're there. Then the goal is to try to address any of the implications after that.
I think police have gotten much better at that over the years. We are much more in tune with trauma-informed policing, interacting with people, providing them resources afterward, recognizing that all of these compounding traumas — especially in an urban environment — are creating additional problems for us, and so, in a roundabout way, that's also like crime prevention and public safety. Yeah, so I'd say a simple answer to your question is we help the people who need it the most, and I'd say at minimum, hopefully we provide them some safety in that time period, and then after that, there's a whole host of things that we can, we can provide.
WSHU: As you know, I have had to call the police on some of the worst days of my life. Because I have a family member with a severe mental illness, and so, full disclosure, I've had the privilege of speaking at a conference for crisis intervention-trained officers, and so that's how we met. But I want to ask you about you. Why did you get into this work? Why does this matter to you?
MF: For me, it's an easy one. My family was all police officers. My grandfather was a police officer in New Haven from 1959 to 1989, and so a lot of his stories, when he first started as a police officer, they didn't have radios. My grandfather's now deceased, but it's fascinating to think about, like, police work back then. The social problems are the same; they change over time, and we get more technology, but human beings interact with one another and do terrible things to each other, but also, you know, do incredible feats of heroism. I always say, in policing, we see the worst of the worst, but we also see the best of the best. Because in those moments, there's a lot, a lot of humanity that happens that people like you said that happens far away from those headlines, and so my grandfather was a police officer, my uncle was a police officer who was shot and killed by a career criminal in the city of New Haven, and so he was shot on June 13, 2002 and then he passed away on January 10, 2007, and so both of those incidents happened in like my formative years. I remember in my uncle's funeral, there was a portion of the funeral where there were a couple of gut-wrenching things that happened. There's a portion of it where the entire department lines up at one point individually and in groups, and they come and salute the casket, and then they take their right glove off and put it on the casket, symbolizing that they would give their right hand for that person.
WSHU: Does that happen at every police funeral?
MF: There's, there's some traditions. There are certain things that happen as a formality. I can't say it happens at every one, but it is a classic tradition that does happen at a lot of them. And so, to me, like, how could you not want to be a part of that? I've always kind of gravitated towards helping people, and you know, trying to make a difference, trying to solve problems, trying to help people work through challenging things, and so I love the job. I think it's the best job, the best job in the world by far.
WSHU: Let's veer off for a second and talk to me about crisis intervention training. Who takes it, why do they take it, and does it make a difference in the way you operate in the community?
MF: Yeah, great question, that comes up a lot. I've talked a lot about Crisis Intervention Team training for a decade now. It looks different in different departments, but generally, the training is standardized across the state of Connecticut. So, it is a 40-hour model. It's based on the Memphis model from Memphis, Tennessee. It gets around 1987 when there's an incident where police there interact with an individual in a mental health crisis, and unfortunately, because of the circumstances, they shoot him — and unfortunately, he dies as a result of that. But so, a number of professionals at that time got together and said, "Hey, how do we help police understand people better? How do we help police interact with individuals in crisis, and especially those with mental illness? How do we help them understand and interact better?" And so, that has morphed over the years. That's about, you know, 40 years now.
In Connecticut, while we don't say all officers should take it, we recommend that officers do so if they're interested. In Connecticut specifically, having, like, a mental health training for officers, "Hey, this is what mental illness looks like," just for general, that's what they do in the academy. This 40-hour model digs a lot deeper. How do you interact with somebody who is suffering from suicidal ideation? How do you communicate with them? How do you build rapport with them? How do you do that when I've watched officers do it on the sides of bridges on the — we just had officers pull an individual who jumped off a garage and tried to hang himself. Two of our officers reached over the edge and pulled him back up and saved his life. And so, while there wasn't much communication in that circumstance, we train officers to give them the tools they need when they're in these situations. Because if we don't give them the tools, they just figure it out on their own, the best way that humans know how. And so, police officers specifically have been doing this for a long time. A lot of police officers, who are in this world interacting with people day in and day out, get pretty good at communicating, avoiding conflict, and addressing it. This is just a broader set of skills and tools. Someone who's having hallucinations and delusions, especially, you know, whether it's a result of drugs or a mental health crisis, the way they present can induce fear. And so the more officers understand, the less likely their first reaction is fear, and they can then change the game a little bit. Use different strategies and tactics that are time-tested and proven to yield better results.
And I think where the rubber meets the road for me is you can see the change happen in officers, and so I've been on scenes where officers have not been CIT trained, and they're newer officers, and they just don't have that skill set yet. They're still trying to figure themselves out as police officers. Then they see somebody who does have CIT training, or they go to CIT training, and they say, "Hey, how does that stuff work? You know, like you were able to talk to this person who was so angry at us and get them to go in the ambulance on their own, or get them to turn around and put their hands behind their back," like those communication strategies are phenomenal tools for officers to have, and so addressing those topics and giving officers the information that they need to relate to people, communicate with people, and then provide resources afterwards, so that we don't have the same call happening over and over again.
WSHU: Yeah, and you know, as the mother of someone with a serious mental illness, I could not agree more. And you know what saddens me is that — this is not the kind of police work that makes the headlines. And that's why we have this podcast, obviously, but you know, I, I wrote a blog post once on Substack, you know, asking if someone is in politics or business or police, you know, in, in the service of power or for the power of service, and clearly, you know, you are a police officer who is in love with serving other people, and that's what I want to shine a light on. So, what inspires you? I know, obviously, your grandfather, your family being police officers, but is there a piece of advice you ever got, or a quote that inspires you that you would like to pass on?
MF: The first one that comes to mind is, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” That one just always is for me; that comes out quite a bit. I just value hard work. I value people who do the work just to do the work, not to talk about it. And so, I think that that phrase, I think, is probably pretty high up there. I think the challenge in law enforcement is that we don't…we don't necessarily talk about our work very well, and so it's hard for us to boast about the good things that we do. Because one, most of the officers that I see aren't doing it for the accolades, they aren't doing it for the social media post, they're just doing it because it's the right thing to do. By saying that, then that leads me to my next piece of what motivates me is the young cops who have been told for years, and the pendulum swings back and forth, and society moves this way.
The 60s, 70s, every decade has its challenges with law enforcement and their interaction with the communities that they police. And so as the things swing one way or the other, there are still human beings who will say, “You know what? Even though people say bad things about that group of people, and say that they're out there doing terrible things. I want to go and see. I want to go do it for myself. Yeah, sure, I'll put a gun and a badge on, and a vest, and I'll go out there and try to make a difference.” And to me, like, I mean, what's better than that? You get to be out in the world helping people in their worst moments. I think that honestly really motivates me. I think that's what the job is all about.
Sure, there's a lot of other stuff, but as public servants, we're all just people trying to figure it out. Also, if I could, I honestly encourage everybody to take a ride-along. If you think you know what policing is like, I encourage you to take a ride-along. I love having people in my cruiser, showing them the city, the area, and what's really going on. The media tells you one thing, people will say another, but you can come and sit right in our seat. A shameless plug for our department — we're always hiring. We're short about 60 cops-ish, maybe a little bit more, and so our website's beacopnewhaven.com. We continually — we do about two tests a year — and so if anybody's interested in being a police officer, we'll gladly, you know, try to get you in, and so you can join us and see what it's all about.
WSHU: How does one do a ride-along? Do you have to want to be a cop to do it?
MF: No.
WSHU: What do you do?
MF: think we did, over 250 last year in New Haven. People did 250 ride-alongs. As long as you can pass a background check. You fill out some paperwork. You can actually do it on that website, beacopnewhaven.com. So, if you go to that website, it'll say fill out a ride-along form, and you can come, and you can ask for whatever district you want to work in. New Haven has 10 districts, so you can go downtown if you want to on a bar night. Yeah, we're happy to open our doors for people to see what it's really like.
WSHU: I love that. I did that once. I did a ride-along once in Fairfield, Connecticut. And we got to visit a family — their child had just been in crisis the day before. I felt like, well, I'm an actor, so I was like, jump into the shoes of people, but I'm there with my little clipboard, and I was just feeling like, “Oh, I'm the detective on the scene.” But it is so eye-opening to ride in that car and look at how people look at you, and then out and visit a family, and that officer — I think it was a lieutenant — was giving resources to the family, and for severe mental illness, for somebody to visit the family the day after the crisis and say, "How are you doing? Here are some resources.”
MF: Incredible.
WSHU: Priceless.
MF: There was another quote that always comes to mind when I think about policing. “Police officers go places that nobody else wants to go and talk to people that nobody else wants to talk to.” And so, if you think about it, we get a lot of calls for, “Hey, that person's talking to themselves over there. I'm worried about them. They're in a tent. X, y, and z.” And people don't go and talk to them as humans, but the police go, and so that's always an interesting thing, like we can't just say, “Hey, we're not going to go talk to that person.” We can say it's not a crime. What are we investigating? But I think, like, you know, I ran one of the districts in New Haven for five years, and I'd get a call about people who are unhoused quite a bit. “Hey, there's a guy with a tent that just popped up,” and I'd say to those people calling, "Well, did you talk to them? What's their name?” “Oh, I'm not going to talk to them. They could be dangerous.” So, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to go and ask the person what their name is, and how they ended up in that circumstance, and like, sure, I guess if push comes to shove, they could get arrested, but the goal is to figure out what — how this person got to the point they're at, and how do we avoid them getting there again, and how do we avoid someone else getting to that same spot.
WSHU: So, two more questions, Mike. How can others help you now? I think you've already mentioned being aware of what the police are there for, and doing a ride-along. Is there anything else that comes to mind as I ask that question? How can others support their local police departments?
MF: So, if you, if you think about it, policing is a challenging job. People are not always going to agree with the way the police do things. Before you snap to judgment, see what it's like first. And so people will say, like, “Oh, I don't like the cops.” Okay, well, why? You know, what is it? Did you have a personal interaction with a police officer who was…you perceived as being rude, or whatever the circumstances are? We can't say police are bad in one sentence and then say, “Well, we need to hire good police officers.” I'm in charge of recruiting, and right now I oversee recruiting and backgrounds in our department. Our teams can turn a good person who cares into a good cop. It's very challenging to make somebody who's a good cop who doesn't have that quality of caring.
I think the way people help is honestly just being a little bit kinder. Trying to understand, and listen, I get it, there's plenty of videos out there where cops are yelling at people and doing things that they shouldn't be doing, and they should be held accountable for that. You can't act this way in society, and so police officers are held to a higher standard, but I'd say just, just be kinder. I always get a little awkward when people thank me for my service, but it is a nice thing to be appreciated. And you know, on social media, you see cops are bad, they're, they’re doing x, y, and z. Most cops are just out here trying to make a difference. They're going from call to call, they're trying to do the right thing in the way, the best way they know how. I'd say just, just being kinder, being more supportive of the police. “Hey, we appreciate that you're here.” I think those, those things in society you can disagree, but like I think appreciating the fact that someone's willing to put a gun, a badge on, and risk their life for a random citizen, I think that's worth still worth doing. I still think it's an honorable profession. I still think it's a great profession. I think that's worth lifting up in our society.
WSHU: Thank you so much for that because — and I think it also begins — I'm a grandmother of three, and you know, I would say, don't say to your kids, “Don't do that, or the police will come get you,” l it begins there. And look, I grew up in a generation where there was part of the country calling police officers pigs. I don't know if you remember that in your ancient history, but you know —
MF: We get that. We still get that quite a bit. There's somebody who spray-painted right down the street: Kill cops…right near our police department. And so, like, that's, at this point in my career, it doesn't really bother me, but as a cop with a year or two on, like, they're trying to make a difference, and it's, it's challenging to not be supported or feel supported.
WSHU: Exactly. So, you know, I'm not a perfect person, but I'm aware that it starts young, and I'm always telling my kids, “Look at that police officer, how he's helping us.” You know, even, even, and I try, this is hard, but if, if a police officer — it has been a long time since I've been pulled over for speeding, but you know, yay — but I have been in the past, and if this were to happen, I would want to be in the state of mind to say, “This person is trying to keep the road safe. This person might be a little bit afraid, so I'm going to put my hands up so he or she feels safe and knows that I'm cooperating,” because it takes a little bit of empathy to see something from another person's point of view. And the final question is, this is philosophical, but why do you think we're here on Earth?
MF: Why do I think we're here on Earth? Well, I think that there is something interesting that human beings have that no other animals have. And it's obviously our ability to know that we exist and think about ourselves in that way. I don't really know, honestly, like I'm not literally left speechless very often, but I don't know.
WSHU: Okay, that's, that's a fair answer. If someone were to, and we can leave it at that, but I'm just going to give you a different prompt. If you were to say, “I feel like my purpose in this lifetime is to blank.” Is there anything, you know, to love your family, to help mankind, to help other people stay safe? Is there anything that comes to mind? But if not, we can just leave it at “it's a hard question to answer,” which is a perfectly valid answer.
MF: Yeah, so my understanding of your first question is like, why are humans here, not like, meaning like you and me? Why are we here?
WSHU: Why are you and I here on Earth?
MF: So, I think that…I think that I have been blessed with a line of work that suits me personally very well, and I've had the opportunity to be in a lot of really incredible circumstances where I like to think I can make a difference in people's worst moments, as we talked about earlier. For myself and for other police officers, that is incredibly rewarding as a human being to be able to be in someone's worst moment and maybe make it a little bit better. And I think that if you think about that, like, I just try to make a difference in people's lives every time I am anywhere; I just try to make someone's day better because I was there. So I think that if everybody lived like that, we'd have a better existence as human beings. Police might be out of a job then, but I think —
