AURORA, Colo. -- The mother of a bipolar 13-year-old is accusing Aurora 911
operators of being uneducated about Aurora Police Department policies
concerning mentally ill patients.

Debra Hill said 911 operators did not know to dispatch specially-trained
police officers known as Crisis Intervention Teams or C.I.T.'s when she
called police during her son Geordi's violent bipolar episode a few weeks
ago. Hill also said Aurora Police would not put her son on an emergency
mental health hold even though her son was, in her view, a danger to himself
and others.

Hill said Geordi's first violent episode happened four days after Christmas,
shortly after he was released from psychiatric care at Children's Hospital.

"He was throwing things and threatening people and just generally tearing
apart the whole house," Hill said. At one point, he even threatened suicide,
she said.

Geordi has bipolar disorder bordering on schizophrenia and Hill said she had
been caught in her 250-pound son's path before during one of these
outbursts.

"I wound up with a concussion because I had gotten in the middle," Hill
said.

This time, she took Geordi's therapist's advice and called 911 to ask for a
C.I.T. to talk Geordi down and escort him to Children's Hospital. But
dispatch recordings show that 911 operators did not understand her request.

"I need a C.I.T. unit to my house," Hill said in one recording.

"What do you mean by a C.I.T. unit?" the 911 call-taker asked.

"C.I.T. is basically a fancy acronym for officers who are specially trained
to deal with the mentally ill," said Aurora Police spokesman Detective Bob
Friel.

Hill said the 911 operator appeared to have never heard of C.I.T.s and the
police who arrived at her house were not crisis intervention officers and
would not transport her son on an emergency mental health hold, instead
recommending that she call an ambulance herself at a cost of thousands of
dollars.

Police say it is up to officers who respond to a call involving a mentally
ill person to determine whether he or she requires a mental health hold. If
the officer determines a mental health hold is needed, the officer orders an
ambulance to take the person to a hospital at no cost and serves as an
escort.

Police say both C.I.T. officers and non-C.I.T. officers can make those
evaluations and recommend or decline to put a mentally ill person on an
emergency mental health hold.

But Hill claims the system simply didn't work for her.

"Half the time when you do contact 911 they don't now what you're talking
about or you get officers that don't know what you're talking about," Debra
said.

The scene would play out three times over the next few days. Geordi would
have a bipolar episode. Unable to transport him because of his size and
fearful that he would hurt himself or someone else, Hill would call police.
Operators at 911 appeared confused by her request.

"Is this a CIT unit coming out by any chance?" Hill asked one operator after
being told that officers were on the way.

"I don't know what that is," the operator replied.

"That's a crisis intervention team," Hill explained.

"I don't know how that works," the operator admitted.

When Aurora police arrived, each time they determined that Geordi did not
need an emergency mental health hold or a transport.

"We did not believe the young 13-year-old was suicidal," said Friel.

According to Aurora police guidelines, a person must "appear to be mentally
ill ... and be an imminent danger to themselves or others" to qualify for an
emergency mental health hold.

"The situation simply did not support us initiating a mental health hold,"
said Friel.

But Hill insists the 911 calls tell a different story.

"He's being combative. He's threatening to kill himself," Hill told a 911
operator during one call.

Police say when they arrived, Geordi was relatively calm. But Hill said had
the officers been C.I.T. trained, they might have recognized Geordi's
behavior as a classic case of bipolar mood swings.

"My son was going back and forth between highs and lows," she said.

In the end, after three days of wrangling with 911 operators and police over
what to do with her son, Hill managed to talk her son into getting into her
own car to go to Children's Hospital. But at the hospital, Geordi would not
get out of the car and wound up in a 30 minute standoff with doctors and
security officers. Geordi is now hospitalized indefinitely and on new
medication.

Friel insists that 911 operators did the right thing when they sent officers
who were not trained in crisis intervention.

"All of our officers are trained to deal with mentally ill persons," he
said. "In this particular case, the officers felt that that particular
resource was not needed and in fact were able to effectively deal with that
situation."

He said transporting Geordi to a hospital was not only unnecessary, but may
have caused him additional trauma in the end.

A City of Aurora representative would not speak directly to questions about
why dispatchers were apparently not aware of the definition or existence of
Crisis Intervention Teams, but released a statement saying, "What is
important is that we get the facts about the situation and dispatch our
public safety personnel as soon as possible -- as we did in each of these
cases. They are best suited to assess the situation to determine what
special resources might be needed."