“I join all members of the East Bridgewater Police Department in offering my sincere condolences to the family affected by this terrible tragedy, our community’s first homicide since 1992.
“As this is an ongoing homicide investigation, led by the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office, I am unable to comment further on this specific case or specific individuals. However, I can confirm that the suspect is known to our agency.
“The East Bridgewater Police Department has long been a leader in adopting and developing programs meant to serve our most vulnerable citizens, including those suffering from mental illness, substance use disorders and cognitive disabilities. Through these initiatives and training programs, we have brought specialized staff and partnered with our neighboring communities to provide a strong level of service to our residents.
“For example, the department remains a committed partner to a regional state-funded mental health program that allows us to share a full-time mental health clinician with five other municipal police departments. Since 2018, the clinician has been working with police officers of each department to co-respond to mental health-related calls for service, which can include crisis calls that require de-escalation or stabilization, traumatic large-scale events, death notifications, suicides or suicidal ideation, drug overdoses, wellbeing checks and calls involving special populations such as children or seniors. The clinician also completes follow-up assists and provides referrals. Over the past three years, this clinician, embedded with our officers, has had hundreds of citizen interactions in our region.
“In 2016, the East Bridgewater Police Department pledged to improve its response to those suffering from mental health disorders by completing the One Mind Campaign. We were challenged to implement practices within this department that would improve mental health programming, training and procedures. We completed this pledge in 2019. As part of this campaign, our agency created and implemented a model policy to address officers’ interactions with those affected by mental illness and completed additional training specific to addressing mental health-related calls for service.
“Additionally, all our department’s members have been trained in Mental Health First Aid which teaches officers how to help someone who may be struggling with mental health or substance use challenges. The training helps officers learn to identify and understand signs of addiction and mental illness and provides them with additional appropriate response and de-escalation options.
“Approximately 20% of East Bridgewater Police personnel have also completed advanced crisis intervention training, with more training classes pending.
“East Bridgewater Police officers also complete additional training in mental health awareness and interactions offered through state and national law enforcement training sources.
“The East Bridgewater Police Department will remain committed to providing the best possible public safety training and resources to its officers that will allow them to continue to respond appropriately and provide resources or referrals where possible.”