LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – The Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office has requested funding to hire four mental health deputies.
Lubbock County Sheriff Kelly Rowe made the same request last budget cycle, but the majority of Lubbock County Commissioners voted against the positions.
Lubbock County Judge Curtis Parrish advocated for the positions last year and said he will vote in favor of them again this year.
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“These four mental health deputies will give us that tool that we need for those struggling with a mental health crisis,” Parrish said.
Sheriff Kelly Rowe met with the commissioners court in a budget workshop this week where he told the court that the positions are still needed.
Rowe said his office responded to 6,669 calls in 2020. He said that number increased to 10,539 calls in 2023.
Rowe said 285 of last year’s calls were related to a suicidal subject.
Rowe said the Mental Health Deputy Program would ease the call load while also helping to divert people from the Lubbock County Detention Center and into a mental health facility.
Deputies served more than two dozen Emergency Detention Orders last year. Those mental health warrants allow law enforcement to take a person into custody if they are mentally ill and pose a substantial and imminent threat of serious harm to themselves or others.
The law also allows law enforcement to take a person into custody without a warrant, if they are displaying those symptoms.
“Historically, a fight ensues and someone is going to get hit or kicked and now we have got that guy sitting in the jail out there on a felony one charge and who knows how many years it will take to get him cleared out of there,” Rowe said.
Rowe said once someone enters the criminal justice system, delays can keep them there for years.
Rowe said one man was recently adjudicated after spending 13 years going back and forth between the Lubbock County Detention Center and the state hospital system.
“It’s sad that the jails across the country have become our de-facto mental institutions,” Rowe said. “That being said we understand and recognize that a high volume of those individuals end up in the criminal justice system, which is absolutely the most expensive way to try to handle the issues they are having.”
Rowe said 50 percent of the population at the Lubbock County Detention Center requires some level of mental health service.
In the meeting, Rowe played a deputy’s body-camera video taken from around 10:30 p.m. on March 14, 2024.
In the video, a mother is speaking with deputies who tell her they have a warrant to take her son in for a mental health evaluation at Sunrise Canyon Hospital.
The mother told deputies her son was schizophrenic and had stopped taking his medication.
When the deputies entered her son’s room and explain why they are there, he refused to go with them. A deputy attempted to put him in handcuffs, but he fought the deputy off.
“You are going to get tased,” one deputy said.
“Do it,” the person said.
Deputies tried to de-escalate the situation.
“We are going to take care of you. We’ve got you. You are going with us; we are going to get you the help you need. In order for us to do that, I need you to relax,” a deputy said.
“It’s too late for that,” the person said.
“The moment you assault my officers, it’s over. Then we are not going to mental health facility,” the deputy said.
“I am refusing, therefore we are taking this to a physical point which none of us want to do, none of you want to do, or you can tase me which also works. So go for it, tase me or I am refusing to go,” he said.
“I think everybody can probably guess how that ended, but he was moved out of there,” Rowe said.
Commissioners will vote on the county tax rate on Aug. 26 with a final vote on the budget on Monday, Sept. 9.
The Lubbock Police Department already has a program that is similar to what the sheriff’s office has requested.
In 2018, LPD expanded its Mental Health Peace Officer Program to include a full-time Crisis Intervention Team.
We rode along with a member of the CIT team. Click here to learn more.
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