Nova Scotia lawmakers push for mental illness training for police, correctional officers

From The Canadian Press:

HALIFAX, N.S. — Nova Scotia's Opposition Liberals have introduced an amendment to legislation that calls for the creation of a mental illness training program for police and correctional officers.

Justice critic Michel Samson says the program would train and educate officers on the most effective ways to deal with mentally ill people.

Samson says it would also help officers determine how someone with a mental illness should be treated if they're detained or taken into custody.

Samson's call comes as a public inquiry in Halifax tries to determine why a schizophrenic man who died in custody never received the psychiatric help he needed and how to prevent similar deaths in the future.

In November 2007, Howard Hyde died at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility some 30 hours after he was Tasered by police.

A medical examiner concluded the 45-year-old man died from a condition known as excited delirium stemming from paranoid schizophrenia.