On a cold night toward the end of February, Codii Lewis took a walk along Swanson Boulevard, in Urbandale, and contemplated ending his life.

He climbed onto a ledge overlooking the shallow and frozen Walnut Creek. His dog had died recently. Lewis, a transgender man, faced an upcoming gender-confirming medical procedure with uncertain medical costs. He was in a depressive state, which had led him to hurt himself once before.

Lewis eventually climbed down from the ledge, right as officers from the Clive Police Department were arriving on the scene. After identifying himself, Lewis said he told them he didn't need their assistance and didn't want to speak with them. He said he would walk home alone and attempted to leave.

Lewis dismissed the officers as they repeatedly asked him to stop and speak with them. When he asked if he was being detained, an officer said no, so Lewis kept walking.

Lewis’ fiancé had called the police to provide emergency assistance to his partner, but Lewis said officers didn't tell him that. Anxious and afraid, he began streaming video from his phone on Facebook Live.

“Right now, I’m being followed by the f---ing cops,” Lewis said into his phone. “I told them to leave me alone, that I don’t want to talk to them, and they won’t leave me the f--- alone.”

Yelling and cursing can be heard as the footage goes blurry. Lewis said the police officers pushed him into a pile of snow. In their report, officers said Lewis fell. The police can be heard yelling, “Give me your f---ing hands.” Lewis cries and whimpers.

The video ends with Clive Police Officer Nicholas Anderson telling Lewis that he has just kicked him in the groin and that he's being arrested for assaulting a police officer — an allegation that Lewis denies.

This is how a mental health welfare check becomes a criminal event, and how police officers tasked with ensuring the safety of a suicidal man ended up charging him with an aggravated misdemeanor for assault on a peace officer.

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‘It could’ve ended differently’

Logan Elliott called the police that night to report that his fiancé, Lewis, had threatened suicide and had made a prior attempt. Police tracked his cellphone and set off to find him, sirens blaring.

Clive Police Chief Michael Venema said his officers are adequately trained to deal with mental health emergencies and did the right thing by not allowing Lewis to walk away.

“Just because they do not want help doesn't mean that it's not important for the public well-being for us to step in," Venema said.

Venema said he believes the two officers had little choice but to physically subdue and forcibly handcuff Lewis, who is 5-feet tall and 120 pounds.

The standard mental health training that Clive officers receive calls for less aggressive behavior by police. It emphasizes de-escalation, especially when the subject may be suicidal. It doesn’t expect officers to be therapists or to handle all mental health situations, but it does ask that they handle mental health situations differently than they might with other calls — to be more sensitive, to listen and, in general, to be more understanding of the situation than they might normally be.

Police departments in Polk County are some of the most advanced in the state when it comes to mental health crisis-intervention training, said Steve Johnson, the behavioral health administrator at Broadlawns Medical Center.

Johnson also leads the Mobile Crisis Unit that operates out of Broadlawns and provides mental health services in emergency situations. On average, Johnson said, the unit receives six calls a day from departments throughout the metro area.

Broadlawns and Polk County health officials, along with various law enforcement from departments across the county, attend six to eight training sessions a year with that focus on training officers — especially new officers — on how to respond to people with mental health concerns.

Clive officers underwent intervention training conducted by the mobile crisis team a year ago. Last summer, they received community resource training, which informs officers on the different emergency services available to them.

"The whole thing about being in psychosis is, you're not grounded in reality," said Peggy Huppert, the executive directive for the Iowa chapter of the National Association on Mental Illness. "So there are guidelines for how to deal with people in psychosis.

"You don't yell at them; you don't give them orders. That's why, the kinds of things that law enforcement are often used to doing and are prone to doing, they don't work with people in psychosis — they make it worse."

The Mobile Crisis Unit protocol is for police to call the unit in after stabilizing the situation. In Lewis' case, the unit was never called to the scene. Instead, Lewis was arrested and taken to the Polk County Jail, where mental health services were offered, but Lewis declined.

Huppert said Lewis is lucky to be alive.

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“I'm sorry to say that it's not at all unusual for people to request assistance with someone in their family or a loved one who's in psychosis and the person ends up being killed by law enforcement,” she said.

Nationally, people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement.

"Often when these situations go bad, it's because of a lack of training and a failure of the officers to follow the training," Huppert said. "It's too bad that we have to put law enforcement in this situation, frankly, because mental illness should not be a criminal offense. But it's a system that we have."

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‘I’ll do the wrong thing next time’

Elliott said he was emotionally distraught when he called authorities to ask for help in locating and preventing Lewis from hurting himself.

The Mobile Crisis Unit had provided assistance in Lewis' past episode, and Elliott assumed they would again be called upon. Instead, police informed Elliott that his fiancé had been arrested.

At first, Elliott was relieved to hear that his fiancé was safe. Then, the financial and legal repercussions became clear. Now, friends and others have criticized Elliott, and he questions whether he should have called the police.

“If I had the opportunity to go back, I wouldn't call them,” Elliott concluded, reflecting on the incident and its fallout. “And I hate to say that because it does make me fearful that he may have potentially just kept walking or he would've taken his life.

"But it's to a degree where, now that I know the level of repercussions that came from me just trying to do the right thing, I'll do the wrong thing next time.”

If someone you know is suicidal, you can help by following these tips:

Remove means such as guns, knives or stockpiled pills

Talk openly and honestly about suicide. Don’t be afraid to ask questions such as “Are you having thoughts of suicide?” or “Do you have a plan for how you would kill yourself?”

Ask what you can do to help

Don’t argue, threaten or raise your voice

Don’t debate whether suicide is right or wrong

If your loved one asks for something, provide it, as long as the request is safe and reasonable

If you are nervous, try not to fidget or pace

If your loved one is having hallucinations or delusions, be gentle and sympathetic, but do not get in an argument about whether the delusions or hallucinations are real

Source: National Association on Mental Illness

Follow the Register on Facebook and Twitter for more news. Aaron Calvin can be contacted at acalvin@dmreg.com or on Twitter @aaronpcalvin.