TRAINING HELPS RESOLVE CONFLICTS.

Byline: ERIC LEACH Staff Writer

OXNARD -- Sheriff's deputies and police officers joined mental health workers and clergy members this week for a five-day training program officials believe is saving lives of mentally ill people who sometimes get in conflicts with police.

The Crisis Intervention Academy in Ventura County has trained more than 500 people, including more than half of patrol officers in Ventura County since the program was started in the county five years ago, officials said.

``What it does is teach our deputies how to understand and communicate with folks with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities so we can deal with them in a nonviolent manner,'' said Capt. Ron Nelson, a Sheriff's Department spokesman. ``Ultimately, it saves both them and our deputies from harm.''

From 1997 to December 2001, when the program was started, there were 12 fatal law-enforcement shootings in Ventura County of people considered mentally ill, said Joyce Wilde, program administrator of the Law Enforcement Crisis Intervention Team Program.

In the five years since the program started, there have been five similar fatal law-enforcement shootings in the county, she said.

Intervention Academy, which is administered and used by the Sheriff's Department and the other law enforcement agencies in the county.

The two agencies also recently bought Taser electric-shock guns to help reduce injuries and deaths from violent confrontations.

One sheriff's deputy who took the training made use of it in Simi Valley in September 2004 when a man suddenly pulled a gun from under a shirt on the passenger seat of his car, got out of the car and raised the gun toward the deputy.

Facing a split-second, life-and-death situation, Deputy Frank Huber took cover and instead of firing his own gun, began negotiating with the gunman. He was eventually assisted by Sgt. Patti Salas of the sheriff's hostage negotiating team, who helped him bring the confrontation to a safe end for everyone.

The five-day crisis intervention training program improves the officers' nonviolent crisis intervention skills and promotes empathy for people involved in a personal crisis, Wilde said.

It includes classes in psychotic mood disorders, suicide intervention and post-traumatic stress disorder. It trains cops in verbal de-escalation skills.

Because it is on the coast and offers nice weather, Ventura County attracts homeless people, of whom 25 percent to 50 percent are considered mentally ill, Wilde said. Some stayed in the county after Camarillo State Mental Hospital closed in 1997.

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

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Photo: (1 -- 2) Above, Simi Valley Detective Frank Ahlvers, left, and sheriff's Deputy Bob Marks act out an episode with Joni Bernard, a psychiatric technician with the county's behavioral health agency, who is pretending to be afflicted with bipolar disorder. At left, Ken Rose of Ventura acts as a mentally ill person while police officers from the county talk to him during crisis intervention training in Oxnard on Friday.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer