News
From Tragedy to Transformation: How Crisis Intervention Training Is Creating Safer Communities in South Carolina
September 28, 2026
In 1987, Memphis, Tennessee police officers responded to a call from a panicked mother saying that her son was holding a large knife to his throat and threatening to kill himself. When they arrived, they found 27-year-old Joseph Dewayne Robinson stabbing himself with a knife. The encounter turned deadly when—after unsuccessfully trying to convince Robinson to put down the knife—the police shot Robinson ten times. Robinson died during surgery.
The people of Memphis were outraged. Witnesses rejected the officers’ claims that Robinson had been a threat to their lives. One Memphis citizen wrote into a local newspaper and said that Robinson’s death was “a clear case of the flagrant misuse of lethal force to apprehend a person who is exhibiting violent/self-destructive behavior.” It was a heartbreaking story: a mother who had called for help for her son had instead watched him be shot to death.
In response, with the assistance of local advocates with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the City of Memphis established a task force that would later become the Memphis Police Department Crisis Intervention Team. The goal was to change the way that police officers responded to people experiencing mental health crises. The program was a success. That success led to nation-wide implementation, and today, there are 2,700 CIT programs across the country, including South Carolina.
Today, NAMI Crisis Intervention Training is a five-day program where law enforcement officers are instructed on how to recognize signs of mental illness and psychiatric distress and how to respond. As explained by SC NAMI, “Officers are trained to recognize signs and symptoms of mental illness, appropriate medications and side effects, use of verbal de-escalation, active listening skills, and police tactics for safe restraint and use of force techniques as well as a tour of mental health facilities and role playing.”
Officers gain insight and information from mental health professionals, organizations like ours, and even people with mental illness and their families. “The program includes presentations called ‘Faces’ where people with mental illness or their family members talk to the officers about how mental illness has affected them,” explained Dave Zoellner, an attorney with Disability Rights South Carolina and a longtime presenter at the trainings.
Disability Rights South Carolina has been participating in the training for eighteen years. While mental health is largely the focus for CIT, some speakers—like us—offer broader instruction on disabilities. We provide insight into different types of disabilities and how interactions with people with disabilities may differ from other interactions. We broadly inform them of the legal rights of people with disabilities, explaining both federal and state legislation that have enshrined those rights. We also provide resources to further their education, for their use in interactions with people with disabilities, and to pass along to the folks that they encounter. DRSC participates in about 25 NAMI CIT programs each year, from jurisdictions across the state.
Although CIT has made great strides, the work isn’t over. In 2025, 116 people were killed by police officers who were responding to reports about possible mental health crises and/or people requesting welfare checks. This is why Disability Rights South Carolina (DRSC) remains deeply committed to this work. Every training, every conversation, and every partnership is an opportunity to prevent future tragedies and ensure that people with disabilities are treated with the dignity and understanding they deserve. DRSC will continue to prioritize this work because it saves lives, strengthens our communities, and moves us closer to a world where everyone’s rights and humanity are respected.