CHESTER, Maine - Advocates for the mentally ill in Maine say three officers involved in a fatal police shooting over the weekend had not received Crisis Intervention Training.
Shad Gerkin, 34, of Woodville, was shot and killed Saturday, while wielding a knife during a standoff in Chester that lasted for several hours.
Jenna Mehnert, of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Maine, says Crisis Intervention Training - or CIT - specifically addresses mental health crises. She says her organization is offering abbreviated courses to increase the number of state troopers with basic mental health training.
"State police have a pretty low percentage of their individuals, of their state troopers, trained in CIT because it is a week long training and it does require someone to be off of their normal duty shift for a week."
Three Maine State Troopers - Sgt. Nicholas Grass, Sgt. Donald Shead, and Detective Gregory Mitchell - are on administrative leave, and the Maine Attorney General's Office is investigating, as is standard procedure following a police shooting.
