At Crisis Call, Officer Curry De-Escalates

“Can I make you kill me?” the man, holding a knife to his own body, asked Officer Chad Curry.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Curry responded. ​“I don’t want to kill anybody.”

Then calmly, slowly, the nine-and-a-half-year city police veteran put his recent de-escalation training to work — and got the man to drop the knife before an ambulance crew arrived to provide him with medical help.

That interaction is shown in full in a 30-minute body camera video clip released by the New Haven Police Department (NHPD) on Thursday afternoon.

The incident itself took place at the Bella Vista elderly apartment complex on Eastern Street on the morning of July 22.

If you are struggling with self-harm, you are not alone. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 800−273−8255; it operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The crisis text line is 741741.

At a Thursday morning press conference held on the third floor of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave., Police Chief Karl Jacobson joined Assistant Chief David Zannelli and Mayor Justin Elicker to herald Curry for the care and consideration he brought to his handling of a man considering suicide.

Curry’s response was ​“nothing short of heroic,” Zannelli said. It exemplified the ICAT (Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics) de-escalation training that every officer in the police department has recently received.

That training encourages officers like Curry to ​“slow down the situation, use no force, and talk the individual down and prevent him from harming himself” when responding to someone in apparent mental distress, Zannelli said. ​“We were happy to get this man healthcare services immediately. [Curry] represents the best of us.”

Curry credited the recent ICAT training for encouraging officers to ​“make connections with people. … To not rush in, and just be compassionate.” (Click here to read a previous ​“Cop of the Week” profile about Curry’s approach to policing.)

The body camera video at the top of this article shows how the incident played out in real time.

Curry and several fellow police officers responded to Bella Vista at around 8 a.m. on July 22 after a man in apparent distress called the crisis hotline, 211.

Fifteen minutes after arriving at the elderly apartment complex, Curry found the man sitting on a park bench next to a woman.

The man had a knife, and was pointing that knife at himself. (In the body cam video, police have redacted the image of the man himself to protect his identity. Viewers cannot see the knife he is holding, though Curry mentions it multiple times in his ensuing conversation with the man and fellow officers.)

“He’s holding a knife to his wrist, or something sharp,” Curry tells another officer.

The officer stays at a 10-foot distance as he talks to the man on the bench.

“Whatever’s going on with you is temporary,” the officer says. ​“Your knife, I don’t want you hurting yourself, alright?”

Curry then asks the woman sitting next to the man to move away, if she can, so that the officer could talk to him without putting her at risk.

“I’m Chad. This is Randy,” the officer says to the man with the knife. ​“Could you tell me what’s going on here today?”

“I’m tired,” the man responds.

“Tired of what?” Curry asks.

The man mumbles a response that Curry couldn’t hear. 

“If you put down the knife, [that would] probably make me feel more comfortable,” he says.

Then the man speaks up so that Curry can hear him.

“Can I make you kill me?” he asks.

That’s when Curry says he doesn’t want to kill him, or anyone else.

Curry asks his fellow officers to ​“kill their sirens, please” as he continues talking the man out of trouble.

The man puts down the knife. Curry thanks him.

The officers then surround the man, ask him to keep his hands out of his pockets, and continue thanking him — and checking in on him — as they wait for an ambulance to arrive.

“Thank you for dropping it,” Curry tells the man who no longer has the knife. ​“That was a good choice that you made. I really appreciate that.”

Click on the video below to watch Thursday’s press conference in full.