Nine hours on call with the Behavioral Health Unit

Jennifer Moya often talks to people on the worst days of their lives.

Moya is a clinical therapist for the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Behavioral Health Unit, a response team composed of caseworkers, therapists, paramedics and detectives who respond to 911 calls involving mental health crises.

From street corners to backyards and airports, the entire county is her therapy office.

Some people need medication, others social services, but many more just need someone to listen, Moya said.

“A lot of my magic is just empathy,” she said.

Bringing mental health professionals into the field with law enforcement is an emerging solution in public safety. Often first responders aren’t equipped to handle such crises and are expected to close calls quickly to get to the next emergency.

Addressing mental health crises requires a Swiss Army knife of services and professionals, including paramedics, therapists and law enforcement.

That’s where the Behavioral Health Unit comes in, by catching people who might otherwise fall through the cracks.

The team is also the only law enforcement unit in the state of New Mexico approved to administer antipsychotic drugs in the field, which can bring people back from drug-induced psychosis, schizophrenic episodes, mania or other mental health crises.

Last week, the unit administered its first dose to an out-of-state man who appeared to be having a manic episode just before catching a flight home from the Albuquerque International Sunport. Within 20 minutes, paramedic Joe Drevenak said the man had relaxed and stabilized.

While Drevenak monitored him, Moya called his wife and the two planned how to get him treatment when he returned home.

Thanks to the team’s work, the man was able to catch his flight and be treated in California with his loved ones rather than being hospitalized alone in New Mexico.

For the Behavioral Health Unit, each day presents unique challenges. Some days only a few calls come in, Moya said. Other days, there are no breaks, even to use the bathroom, as emergency calls pile up.

This is what a recent Monday shift looked like.

9 a.m.

Sleepy from the change to daylight saving time, staff filled their coffee cups and checked their laptops.

Rather than reading emails, Moya sifted through calls from 911, several of which had already been flagged for involving mental health.

At 9:28 a.m., deputies referred a case about an elderly man living in his truck in a South Valley neighborhood. The man had lived there for years, but law enforcement officers flagged the call for the unit as a last-ditch effort before towing the truck at the neighbor’s request.

The team put on safety vests and set out to find the man. The white Chevy truck was parked alongside a cinder block wall, its passenger’s side window covered with a carpet.

Detective Steve Aldredge knocked on the window, waited and heard no reply.

Alongside the truck was a trailer, covered with a gray tarp. On the truck bed was likely everything the man owned, neatly organized but towering.

“Either no one’s home or no one’s coming out,” Aldredge said.

Moya left information on the man’s windshield, including where to get food, housing and medical assistance.

Sometimes showing up is all the team can do, without causing more harm, Aldredge said.

“We’re not gonna fix anybody,” Aldredge said. “Maybe they’re gonna hold together for a year and one day a (medicine) doesn’t work. There’s no end. We put a Band-Aid on and wait for it to fall off.”

Despite offering solutions, medications and a listening ear, whether a person decides to change their situation is their own choice.

10 a.m.

At 10:35 a.m., a landlord called a wellness check on his tenant, an elderly woman who struggled with her short-term memory, likely due to dementia.

She had no car, no money and no way to get groceries outside of her landlord’s assistance.

She froze her bank account after reporting that she was robbed, but because she had also lost her driver’s license in the incident, she was unable to access her money.

The bank would not talk to the landlord, although she had no relatives to assist her.

Her only family, a twin sister, had died several years ago, though she told officers that it had been just several months.

She owed hundreds of dollars in utility bills and would have had her heat and power switched off had the landlord not transferred the bill to his name.

The woman had been a tenant for 12 years but had severely declined in the past four months, the landlord said.

Not knowing what else to do, the landlord called for help.

When the team arrived, the wispy-haired woman admitted that she was fiercely independent and deeply embarrassed.

“It’s OK to ask for help,” Moya told her. “Asking for help can show that you’re strong.”

There is currently no treatment for dementia. There is no pill that Drevenak could give to alleviate her struggles.

So instead, the team turned to things with which they could help. A box of groceries and dog food for her corgi were the first steps.

After that, the team would get her new identification so she could get back into her bank account. The next step, Moya said, is a case worker coordinating with Adult Protective Services to get a caregiver to check on her through Medicaid.

“We’re not here to take your independence from you,” Aldredge said, and hugged the woman.

Noon

As the team hoped to pause for lunch, another call came in.

At 12:14 p.m., a psychiatrist called 911 after her client threatened to kill himself by hanging. He was intoxicated, agitated and known to own a gun.

When the team arrived at the otherwise idyllic apartment complex, the man was leaning over the side of his fence shouting obscenities at law enforcement already on scene.

The man slurred his words and shouted at Moya as she repeatedly explained that she was a therapist, not a police officer.

At one point the man said he would flash his genitals at deputies if they did not leave.

Because of his suicidal behavior and ongoing baiting of armed officers, Moya issued a certificate for evaluation, indicating that he needed to be further evaluated at a mental health clinic within 72 hours.

She also called his psychiatrist.

But after a tense, vulgarity-filled standoff, the team decided they would likely get nowhere until he sobered up.

They would come back and try again.

If the situation escalated, a law enforcement officer could petition the court to mandate treatment for the man through the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Act, commonly known as “Kendra’s Law.”

However, the court agreeing to grant such a petition is exceedingly rare, Moya said, as it’s reserved for extreme cases.

In the seven years since the law was enacted in New Mexico, 43 people in Bernalillo County have been court-ordered to outpatient treatment.

Though definitions in the law were recently expanded by the Legislature, the changes have yet to trickle down to the unit’s day-to-day work.

A quiet afternoon

After the team left the scene, calls were quiet. By 6 p.m., they took off their vests and gathered their belongings to go home.

Moya, Drevenak and Aldredge are just one of three mobile crisis teams at the BHU. Seven days a week at least one team is answering calls, though all three may sometimes be working.

In February, the unit as a whole diverted 97 cases from police and received 89 calls for service from 911, said Clinical Manager Michael Lucero.

Though the unit has expanded steadily since it began in 2018, there’s still room for growth. To meet demand, the unit is hoping to hire more clinicians, case workers and detectives in 2026.

“Is it a perfect system?” Moya said. “No, but it’s better than doing nothing. Showing up, doing what I can and if I only get one or two or a handful — that’s success.”

Gillian Barkhurst is the local government reporter for the Journal. She can be reached at gbarkhurst@abqjournal.com.