After arriving at the hospital and getting a checkup, Mozdzierz said he’d decided to leave after arguing with a staffer. As he was leaving the ER, he made both suicidal and threatening statements to hospital staff, his medical records and a police report show, and was forcibly taken back inside—by a county police officer. According to a police report and a report filed later with regulators, a sheriff kneed Mozdzierz twice in the leg, tackled him to the ground with an “arm-bar takedown”—a commonly-taught law enforcement move meant to subdue suspects—and handcuffed him.

Michael Mozdzierz lives just ten minutes away from Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, but he tries to avoid going there when he needs help. But in June of 2018, Mozdzierz was “having a real hard time” after his dog died and he skipped some of his medications. To keep himself safe, he drove to Northeastern’s emergency room.

Vermont is a surprising case study in how things can quickly go wrong when hospitals invite police inside. At least nine of Vermont’s 14 emergency rooms, including six of its eight hospitals serving rural populations, have been cited by national regulators over the past five years for improperly calling police to help with mental health patients.

Cops are not trained in best practices to talk to or help someone suffering with mental health issues, let alone in an emergency room, and often arrest or hurt people they perceive as threatening—or worse. One study found that people with mental illnesses are 16 times more likely to be shot by police, despite a robust body of research showing that the mentally ill are no more dangerous than the average person.

State regulators who later investigated the incident agreed. “There was no evidence of additional hospital staff being alerted to respond and assist with the management and redirection of [Mozdzierz],” the regulators wrote in their report . “...Patient was not in custody of law enforcement, but remained a patient in need of psychiatric services and hospitalization.”

“They could've treated me better and tried to talk to me, convince me to go back in,” he said. “The way they did it was totally uncalled for.”

For Mozdzierz, it was a scarring experience. “They have a real bad reputation,” he said. “If you go in with mental health problems they just treat you like shit.”

As Vermont’s Department of Mental Health noted in a report from April of this year, federal requirements mandate only hospital staff are permitted to handle patients in psychiatric care. Outside contractors, like private security officers, need to be trained and “under the supervision” of hospital staff when handling patients. And police officers “cannot lay hands on an individual who is committing (or has committed) a crime in the emergency department unless they are going to arrest and remove the individual,” the report said.

But those standards have been ignored in Vermont hospitals in recent years.

One 2016 hospital report describes how a patient seeking treatment for anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts was tackled by police with an arm-bar takedown; the officers then handcuffed the patient’s arm to a bed. Five officers were called in 2018 to intimidate a patient who was refusing to accept medication for their bipolar disorder. And in two different hospitals last fall, county sheriffs called by staff Tasered two separate patients seeking treatment for mental health issues, neither of whom were in police custody at the time. Only five hospitals nationally were cited in 2018 for the improper use of Tasers; the two in Vermont were the only ones outside major urban areas.