Davanzo hearing at WCCC reveals first responder challenges

When an emergency call is received by dispatchers, it is treated like all others — with responders on high alert. Fully equipped with firearms, police rush to the scene.

When they arrive, officers quickly assess the situation. This time in Rostraver, like the 32 times before it since January, it is not a shooting, a robbery or even a domestic argument that prompted the call. It is someone having a mental health emergency. Someone who perhaps would have been better served by a trained counselor rather than a law enforcement officer.

Still, police have to handle these situations, which can take hours of an officer’s time, hampering efforts of chronically understaffed police departments.

Rostraver police Chief John Christner recounted this scenario faced by his department to a panel of state House representatives this week at a hearing hosted by state Rep. Eric Davanzo, R-South Huntingdon, at the Westmoreland County Community College Public Safety Training Center in Smithton. The event was held to address issues of policing, recruitment, training and retention of police, emergency service providers and volunteer firefighters.

Christner said the scenario he retold, among other issues, makes the job harder than it ever has been and is one of the reasons municipalities are having a difficult time finding the next generation of emergency workers.

Christner told representatives of the House Majority Policy Committee that mental health issues are much more frequent than when he joined the ranks 35 years ago, and he believes something needs to be done to address the issues for citizens and the police who protect them.

“We have this macho personality that makes it hard to get help for what we deal with ourselves,” the chief said. As an example, he said a fellow officer died in his arms on Christmas and he was “back on the schedule next week,” to illustrate his point that police officers sometimes need help in coping with issues themselves.

Ronald Zona, chief of the Westmoreland Detective Bureau, agreed.

“We see people die or get injured every day, and we just go back on the job,” the detective and former state trooper testified.

During the questions from state representatives and answers from officials that followed, Christner suggested it might be time to mandate routine mental health evaluations for officers.

It can be difficult for an officer to voluntarily seek help because there are laws preventing people with some mental health diagnoses from owning guns, which is a requirement of their jobs, the officers said.

Financial issues

Lack of funding is another issue that all of the police, emergency service personnel and volunteer firefighters said is a challenge for their departments.

Mike Stangroom, director of operations at Rostraver West Newton Emergency Services, said one of the main hurdles is how emergency services are funded.

“Allegheny County local municipalities are funding the services correctly. Other states are doing it right,” Stangroom said. “But Westmoreland is not.”

Personnel testing, training and even Pennsylvania Turnpike fees squeeze their already tight budgets, Stangroom testified. He said his department’s dispatched vehicles are charged up to $800 per month in tolls to rush to the scenes of emergencies.

That leaves less money available to pay recruits, some of whom could make similar beginning hourly wages at places such as Sheetz or McDonald’s, Stangroom said.

And, of course, there are the increasing costs of all the equipment each first responder must have to be prepared for whatever they might find at a scene, officials testified.