The Montgomery County Police Department’s mental health crisis response policy is outdated and inadequate, according to a recently released preliminary audit.

Effective Law Enforcement For All, a non-profit organization that reviews police department standards, released its preliminary findings in a 75-page audit on Wednesday. The county partnered with the non-profit to conduct an independent audit as part of County Executive Marc Elrich’s promise to constituents to reimagine policing. It comes as the county and state have passed multiple pieces of reform legislation.

“We had money in the budget before the George Floyd killing to do this study because we recognized internally that we had issues to deal with here,” Elrich told reporters Wednesday during a press conference. “Residents deserve to have confidence in MCPD in serving and protecting everyone no matter what neighborhood or zip code they live in.”

The audit identifies a lack of reporting and investigating use-of-force incidents, inadequate mental health response policy and training, and a need for additional deescalation and bias-free police training in the county’s police department.

“We can make changes that are impactful and that are sustainable … because we think that reimagining public safety initiative will not only make a difference for county residents, but we think it’s going to be a model for the country,” David Douglas, CEO of the non-profit, told reporters while presenting the audit’s findings Wednesday.

Out of more than 3,000 use of force cases reported by the county police between 2014 and 2019, the audit focused on 60 cases for audit review. And out of the 53 internal affairs investigations into civilian complaints and officer misconduct between 2018 and 2020, the organization selected eight investigations for review. The audit found inconsistencies in the use-of-force reporting process.

Currently, use-of-force incidents in Montgomery County are reported to each police district and reviewed there, but not all are sent to the department’s internal affairs division for an actual investigation to determine if the use of force was justified and if any police policies or directives were violated, according to the audit.

“In many cases, MCPD conducts reviews of force incidents, not investigations,” the report says. “The data [on bias complaints] is possibly distorted, inaccurate for reporting purposes and tracking.”

The audit recommends that all use-of-force incidents should be investigated, and that MCPD create a central system for complaints and a separate unit to look into more serious complaints.

Assistant Montgomery County Police Chief Willie Parker-Loan told reporters Wednesday that the department “acknowledges the work of the audit. We understand that we can be better.”

While the county has invested in establishing mental health crisis response units, the department’s policy on crisis response was published in 2005 and is outdated, according to the report. Starting in 2000, the department made crisis intervention training voluntary for officers, but it is now mandatory for all new recruits. MCPD reports that 66% of its officers are certified in crisis intervention, but the audit says it’s unclear how many officers at each rank are certified.

“These numbers would tell us how ‘outdated’ the department training is, without any real refresher, advanced, [or] specialized training/response [for officers],” the audit says.

Currently, new recruits are provided eight hours of mental health first aid at the police academy and 40 hours of crisis intervention training in the field, according to the audit. The report recommends that the department should implement required annual refresher and advanced training to a specialized voluntary group of officers. That voluntary group of officers would have to apply for the role and submit their performance histories and disciplinary records. The report says the process would also allow for removal of an officer from the group if they were not meeting expectations.

Another recommendation is to reconsider police uniforms and vehicles when responding to a mental health crisis intervention.

“Stigma is exacerbated when marked police vehicles and regular police uniforms show up on scenes where someone is calling for help due to a mental health crisis,” the audit says. “Not only are people embarrassed to have a police cruiser in front of their homes, but uniformed police can also escalate a situation with someone in [a] behavioral health crisis.”

The report also says while the police academy provides a strong foundation for new recruits, the department doesn’t explicitly mention de-escalation training in their curriculum. Instead, the academy provides 67 hours of training on “conflict management and dealing with people.” The report recommends that the academy modify their reality-based scenarios to require recruits to slow down and deescalate the situation using the techniques learned.

“We observed a few de-escalation drills that appeared to be rushed to get all the officers in class through the drills due to time constraints. This was discussed with the Academy Director and he agreed,” the audit says.

It also suggests that de-escalation training could be combined with force training and that the county increase the number of mental health crisis response units to assist with de-escalating situations.

The release of the audit comes after multiple use of force incidents in the county including two officers screaming at and encouraging his mother to hit a 5-year-old boy who had left the grounds of his school in Jan. 2020. The footage wasn’t revealed to the public until March.

The county and state have also been working to implement various reform measures including expansions to the body-worn camera program, use of force, and no knock warrants. In May, the police union sued the county over new use of force limitations that were subject to collective bargaining. Elrich says officials are hoping to resolve those issues, along with the  differences between the state and county legislation.

“There’s a perception that it’s us versus the police,” Elrich said. “Our goal is what we train [officers] for is what we get. That if we want different policing, we’re training for different policing.”

Lee Holland, vice president of the police union, says the group is still looking over the audit, but he says officers are open to change.

“It’s going to come down to training,” Holland told reporters. “If you’ve been here for 15 years and you were trained as a warrior, it’s going to be hard to change to a guardian mindset … but [officers are] expecting change to happen and they’re willing to embrace the change.”

It’s unclear where the funding to make these recommendations would come from. “We will figure out how we get this done because there is no point in doing a study and saying ‘we need to do this stuff’ then saying ‘ah, we don’t have the money,'” Elrich said Wednesday. “The cost to the community in terms of trust … far outweighs what it costs to put this in the budget.”

But Councilman Hans Reimer, who’s running against Elrich for county executive in 2020, said in a statement that residents “deserved action.” Reimer says Elrich should support a bill that would reform the police union’s collective bargaining power if he wants to tackle the department’s use of force policy.

“A major focus of this report is use-of-force policy. The report fails to address how an MPCD effort to revise the use of force policy was delayed by the FOP for ten years. The Council had to intervene with legislation, which is currently being challenged in court. If the executive truly wants these reforms to happen, he should support [the bill] instead of calling for more delay,” Reimer said.

Elrich will host a community forum next week to discuss the preliminary audit findings and how officials are implementing its recommendations. A final report will be released in the fall.