The 72-year-old woman had a knife in her hand and said she was going to kill herself.
She threatened to kill her roommates and locked herself in her room, refusing to come out.
Orlando police were called.
One of the officers who responded in the early morning on Nov. 2 was Laurin Gantt, who has specialized training to deal with people like this woman, whom the Orlando Sentinel is not naming to protect her privacy.
The call to the house near Silver Star Road and Rio Grande Avenue would not be an easy one for Gantt. The woman was not making a lot of sense, saying she was fighting the devil. She also did not believe Gantt was actually a police officer.
“I lost count of how many times I introduced myself and said I was a police officer,” said Gantt, who has been with Orlando police for 5 years and worked as an officer in Louisiana for 5 years before that.
Gantt is one of 55 OPD officers on the Crisis Intervention Team. Officers receive training at Aspire mental health hospital and learn how to identify behavior issues a person may be having.
Because of the training, Gantt was able to quickly determine the woman was having a psychotic episode. Instead of being argumentative or forceful in her speaking with the woman, Gantt used “reassuring words to calm the woman’s fears,” said the commander of the intervention team, Capt. Sue Brown.
Gantt could hear the woman praying, so she tried to talk her about religion.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you come out and pray with me?’” Gant said.
A roommate told Gantt the woman liked to bake, so she tried asking what she liked baking.
Gantt also slipped her police ID and some business cards under the door so the woman knew she was a police officer.
Gantt said she did not want to barge into the room for fear of shocking the woman. Another officer could see the woman outside to see what she was doing with the knife to make sure she wasn’t going to harm herself.
“It’s about getting her to that point where she can get some help,” she said.
She spent more than 30 minutes trying to coax the woman out.
“It felt longer than that,” she said.
Finally, the woman put down the knife and walked out of the room. She was shaken, but not hurt.
Officers were able to secure her and took her to the hospital under the Baker Act, which allows for an involuntary commitment to a mental hospital.
While Gantt could have arrested the woman on aggravated assault charges for threatening her roommates, she decided not to.
“That wasn’t the important thing,” she said. “She was in a mental crisis. It was more important to get her the medical help she needed.”
Getting her out of the room unharmed was a relief, Gantt said. She later learned the woman was mixing her depression and anxiety medication with alcohol.
For her efforts, Gantt was awarded the Orlando police Crisis Intervention Team 2016 officer of the year.
Brown said the award was well-deserved and Gantt used her training well.
“The skill that it takes to establish a rapport with someone you don’t know and get that person to come out peacefully, I can’t tell you how impressive that is,” she said.
Rita Hastings has known the woman for about 8 years and the behavior she displayed that night was out of the norm.
The woman was having a hard time because her ex-husband with whom she was still close committed suicide a little more than a year ago, Hastings said.
The woman often struggled with alcohol.
After she got out of the hospital, the woman was put on new medication and is doing better now.
“She’s back to [the woman] I know,” Hastings said.
At her home this week, the woman said she did not really remember the incident and said it was just a minor disagreement with her roommate.
Hastings was not there that night, but heard from other people that Gantt’s actions were critical.
“Things could have ended badly.” she said. “[The officer] is what turned things around.”
Aspire Health trains officers from several departments, including OPD and the Orange and Seminole counties sheriff’s offices, to help them deal with these situations. The training is important because it prevents situations from escalating, said Todd Dixon, director of community relations.
“It’s critical for anybody that’s encountering someone who’s going through a mental health or substance abuse crisis to understand the various components that are going on and why someone might not understand the commands that other people may understand,” he said. “If the officer knows that, then they can prevent things from escalating to a more serious incident.”
dharris@orlandosentinel.com, 407-420-5471 or @DavidHarrisOS
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