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After deadly Md. shooting, police talk about mental health training

In the last year alone, Montgomery County Police Officers responded to 6300 calls involving someone suffering from a mental health crisis.

Gaithersburg, MD -- In the last year alone, Montgomery County police officers responded to 6,300 calls involving someone suffering from a mental health crisis. That’s about one out of every 10 calls.

WUSA9 was invited into a Crisis Intervention Team Training session on Tuesday evening. The class is an in-depth look into mental illness and how officers can respond to someone in crisis.

About 1,100 Montgomery County Officers and about 2,500 from other departments, including federal agencies, have gone through the crisis training.

RELATED: Family speaking out after man shot by Montgomery County police

It is an intense 40-hour program that teaches mental health first aid, de-escalation techniques, effective communication strategies, implicit bias and conflict management.

“We’re really reaching out to fire and rescue, our resources available to us called pre-stage,” explained Officer Scott Davis the Coordinator of the Crisis Intervention Team, “so if we have the time, we have the ability to get assets there early and pre-stage or we have a chance to get on talk-around channels on our radio and choreograph movements of the officers that works really well to de-escalate very quickly.”

But they don’t always have a heads up.

RELATED: Police seek answers on what precipitated fatal shooting

It is unclear if Officer Anand Bajguar knew Robert White suffered from mental illness but police say he fired the deadly shots last week after the 41-year-old tackled him to the ground.

Did the officer fear for his life? We don’t know because he’s lawyered up and hasn’t spoken to investigators yet.

We do know the officer did not take this crisis training in the two years he’s been with Montgomery County police. He may have at his old job as a Baltimore City police officer.

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