Episode 81 Lieutenant Bowman and Dr. Patterson - ”Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home”

Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home

Lieutenant Amy Bowman, Shreveport Police Department, and Doctor James Patterson, Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport, sit down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:

0:27 1. Lieutenant Bowman, you are a Lieutenant in the Shreveport Police Department. Until recently, you were a Community Liaison Officer or CLO, as it is often known.

You once said, “Community policing isn't a unit. It's a concept…We have an opportunity to do so much in the community, and you see the positive as well as the negative. It's the best of the policing world."

Let’s start here today. Talk to me about community policing and why it is such an important aspect in a successful police department.

2:19 2. Dr. Patterson, you serve as the Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at LSU Health Shreveport. I would like to direct my next couple of questions to you.

My first question is, what defines a crisis?

4:25 3. My next question is, what does Shreveport’s current crisis system look like?

7:04 4. This is going to help with public safety, correct?

8:04 5. I know we're still trying to figure this out because I've participated in some meetings. But is there anything you can tell the public about how potentially this would work? How is there a situation where maybe the police doesn't respond and someone that is more appropriate responds?

10:03 6. And people out there understand for the most part that we have a shortage of police officers, jails are overcrowded. What a lot of people don't know is that we don't have a lot of room in the emergency rooms either. Is that accurate?

11:31 7. I have read that nearly 50% of 911 calls received by Shreveport police are mental health related. How is the Shreveport police better addressing the growing mental health needs of our community?

12:30 8. Is the CIT training (Crisis Intervention Team) for law enforcement somewhat similar to the preparation, for instance, that we're trying to do for our teachers and school staff by training them in ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences)?

17:34 9. I believe that the Tommie McGlothen case helped lead to an increased focus on mental health. Can you talk about the case and what it showed the Shreveport Police Department it needed to do differently?

22:46 10. In speaking about mental health, former Police Chief Ben Raymond said, "So we're going to kind of work in conjunction with mental health experts so that we have better encounters with citizens, less violent encounters with citizens and overall just provide better service".

Take me through how you would respond to a call as an officer before this increased focus on mental health and how your approach might look different today?

26:54 11. Dr. Patterson, what are best practices for transforming our current behavioral health crisis care?

29:43 12. Lieutenant Bowman, what has changed and is more challenging today than it was when you first began working with the Shreveport Police Department?

32:16 13. Lastly, Lieutenant Bowman, what is better today than it was when you first started?