Maria has been caring for her brother John for decades, managing his housing and his medical care. Now, she is at a breaking point. She plays a video on her phone to show why.
“Okay, so I came to his house to bring in some groceries. You can see he's pretty disheveled,” said Maria.
In the video, John walks towards her car. His coat is ripped, his feet are bare.
KUNC is using first names only in this story because Maria lives and works in Longmont and she doesn’t want her clients to know about these struggles.
Garbled yelling can be heard in the background of the video.
“He's starting to get mad right now. So when he gets like that, I just leave,” Maria said. “He never hurt me, but I'm not gonna wait around for him to hit my car or whatever.”
Maria’s brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his 20's. Since then, she says he has cycled in and out of housing and treatment. Recently, he has become more manic, regularly harassing local business owners and patrons.
Over the years, Maria has been able to get him examined at the hospital by successfully petitioning several times for a court-ordered mental health evaluation. To qualify, a petitioner must show that the person is at risk of harming themselves, others or is unable to meet their basic needs, including showering and taking prescribed medication.
The sheriff’s office would receive that order and pick him up.
“I give them a key so they can open the door, and 'John, you're going to the hospital,' with their authority, you know, and they take him in,” said Maria.
Once at the hospital, John would be evaluated and perhaps certified for additional treatment. But this year, that process changed.
“Now, if they get him to open the door, they just ask him if he would like to go, which, of course, he does not,” said Maria.
Out of the two orders she has petitioned for this year, neither have gotten John to the hospital.
‘I get that that's very frustrating for the community’
“If the person is not willing to cooperate with us, there's nothing we can do. And I get that that's very frustrating for the community,” said Jason Oehlkers, a division chief with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.
Oehlkers oversees the civil section, which receives the mental health orders. In the past, he says deputies would sometimes grab someone’s arms to put handcuffs on. Sometimes more force was needed.
But in January, a policy change took effect: for mental health orders, deputies are discouraged from using force and if the situation escalates, they are required to walk away.
“I think around 2020, there was kind of a big push to make some changes in state statutes,” Oehlkers said.
The change came via SB-217, Colorado’s police accountability law which was drafted during the Black Lives Matter protests. It limits use of force and removed qualified immunity which had protected officers from being held personally liable for incidents on the job
“Those changes, I think they took away some of that authority. Which is okay. We’re here to serve the community and if that’s their wish, we will respect that,” Oehlkers said.
'They've taken away my last tool'
"No other county that I know of has interpreted 217 in this way," Rep. Leslie Herod, a sponsor of the legislation said. "Boulder County should continue to do the work that the people need them to do, to serve and protect, which does include intervening in these severe mental health cases."
Different communities handle mental health evaluations in different ways but forcing someone in crisis to go to the hospital is generally discouraged.
In Larimer County, using force to execute a mental health order is allowed but rare. In Arapahoe County, a spokesperson said that due to SB-217 and without clear guidance from the courts, circumstances often weigh in favor of backing off.
Herod says she and her colleagues, like Senator Judy Amabile whose district includes Boulder County, have offered in the past to clarify in related legislation that deputies do have the authority to intervene.
“I'm still completely open to working on that, because we see that there is a lack of willingness to partner on these getting people into care,” Amabile said. “But also it would be better, probably, if we had more co-response, more social services response, more people who could actually do this work that aren't necessarily showing up as law enforcement.”
Meanwhile, people like Maria and John in Longmont are living with the daily realities of serious mental illness. She has still not been able to get him treatment and is considering petitioning for another mental health order.
“They've taken away my last tool, and I don't know what the future is going to bring,” she said.
Without a mental health evaluation, Maria has no idea how to get her brother stabilized and back on his medication.
