In 2022 and again this January, young men of color were shot to death by police in Berkshire County while experiencing mental health crises. In both cases, law enforcement in Pittsfield and Hinsdale were legally exonerated.
Since then, calls for reform have mounted.
On November 17 at the Dalton Senior Center, state Senator Paul Mark and the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission are holding a public conversation on the future of behavioral health support and collaborative crisis response. Mark, who represents the Berkshire, Hampden, Franklin and Hampshire district, spoke to WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Paul Mark: There was an incident clearly in one of the hill towns, and I think what's important is that regardless of which town you live, in Berkshire County or in Massachusetts, or which town you're visiting in Berkshire County or Massachusetts, we want to make sure that people have the best availability to the best response in a crisis situation, and you know, living in one of the hill towns, I know how hard it is for some of these communities to be able to find the resources to do what I think the great majority of residents in all of our county want to do.
And so, back when we were doing the state budget, I actually secured an earmark for $250,000 that was also supported by my colleagues in the House, to try to come up with a crisis response team that'll be available throughout the county. And this listening session is just a way for people to come in and talk to the participating organizations, and let us know, you know, what have you seen? What do you think is important for us to make sure is happening? And how do we get where we need to be in the most effective and sustainable way?
Landes: The incident you're referring to was the police killing of Biagio Kauvil in Hinsdale in January. A young man who was experiencing a mental health crisis, who, in a very controversial and much criticized response from the Hinsdale police, was shot in the head without any mental health responders on scene. It's a situation that's left a gaping wound in the community. Certainly, his family have made it very clear how shattered they are by what's happened.
You know, in the reporting and the various discoveries made looking into the situation, it also turned out that the Hinsdale Police Department had a long history of troubling responses to similar mental health crises, there's still so much ongoing debate and controversy over how the town of Hinsdale itself has handled the situation. Looking at this very, very painful situation that can never really be resolved with Mr. Kauvil dead, what do you think we can take away from this? And when you talk about this proposed overhaul of response systems, you know how would any of this tragedy play into to those concepts?
Mark: Yeah, I think it's tough again in a community that doesn't have a lot of full-time staff and doesn't have a lot of full-time officials able to engage in the governance of the town and the municipality, and that's that's true in Hinsdale. It's true in a lot of communities around the Berkshires and all of Western Massachusetts. I think it's easy to get overwhelmed, and so when we at the state level see that something isn't working the way it should be, I think instead of, you know, just placing the blame or just laying the burden on any one community, it's important that we come together as a county and as a community and try to figure out what can we actually do to make sure something like this doesn't happen again.
There was an incident in Pittsfield a couple of years ago. I think Pittsfield, which has significantly more resources than many of the hill towns, obviously we would take as many more as we could get. I think their response has been really, really in line with where the community wants to be. Like they've been having success, they've been making strides to make sure that there's not a repeat of what happened there. And so, if we have a chance like this, that by the state sending some funding to a couple of county-wide organizations, and they can partner with these communities that are always overstressed and overburdened, [then] maybe we can get to a good place. And the feedback I've been hearing from individuals who write to me and contact me has been, "Yeah, we need something. We want our town to be the best it can be. We want people to know that they're safe here and that they're going to get access to the proper response if they're in need." And that's what's important.
Landes: When you think about like an ideal vision for this alternate behavioral health response crisis team, what would that look like? And you know, certainly given the concerns that that emerged from both Pittsfield, the killing of Miguel Estrella by the Pittsfield Police Department, and the aforementioned Biagio Kauvil and Hinsdale, you know, when you try to sell people on like what this is going to look like. How do you explain it?
Mark: I think the ideal in my head, and I was actually one of the authors of a bill a long time ago called "ACES," which was Alternative Response. The ideal, as I see it, is that regardless of which town you live in, including towns that don't actually have an established police force at all, that if you're in a crisis, that the necessary response is a mental health unit, not necessarily an armed response. That you're going to be able to pick up the phone. You're going to know the number to dial, or the person that is having concern for you is going to know the number that you need to dial, and someone with the proper training is going to be able to come there.
I mean, back when I was early in the House of Representatives, so 10 years ago, I used to attend at Berkshire Community College, a training for crisis intervention training, and it was local police forces trying to understand a level of training that I don't think was commonplace back 10, 20 years ago. And I think this is just the next step in that process that when you need help and the help you need is not somebody that is not properly trained in how to respond to a mental health crisis, and ideally, if it is not needed, that they're there unarmed that you're going to get that help.
You're going to get the resources you need. If patience is what's required, you're going to get the patience that is needed. And ultimately, what's going to happen is that the responders are going to be safe. The person in crisis is going to be safe. The people involved, whether it's family members or roommates or anybody else, is going to be safe. And everybody's going to walk out of there. Everybody's going to be alive. Nobody's going to be injured, and everybody's going to have access to the resources they need to get the job done.
Landes: I want to know what your thoughts are on the families of both Biagio Kauvil and Miguel Estrella. You know, both of them heard from respective law enforcement investigations that everything was lawful. This was just what happened. There's no way to hold anyone accountable, and regardless of resources or regardless of trainings, the loved ones who were shot and killed by police during mental health crises, there is no official sense of of there being a response to that. You know, I saw this play out again in 2022, and this year as well. Can you understand the pain that those families are feeling, and can you speak to what your thoughts are on the lack of any sort of official responsibility being designated for these two deaths?
Mark: Yeah, I can only imagine the pain. I've lost loved ones and situations were very different, and it's horrible. It's sad. When it's a tragedy, it's even more sad, and so you know my role is to try to figure out how we get them closure, and some sometimes the only way to get closure is by the sacrifice that was made, the horrible incident that was made, the loss any of us feel, results in something better happening.
So our role in the legislature is to try to see if something's not working, how do we get resources to the right places? How do we have the right conversations that need to happen, and how do we make sure that there's not another incident like this? And so I hope when this listening session happens, and as resources continued to pour into this, and when an actual response team ends up being put in place, and we work together to make sure it's sustainable and is going to exist into the future, that we're not going to have another incident, that there's not going to be another family going through this pain, going through this anguish. That we're going to stop it here. We're going to learn from mistakes, and we're going to make sure that they don't happen again. That's important.
