DISTURBING EMAILS, CONFUSED CALLS & A CRISIS UNFOLDING — DEPUTIES AGAIN CALLED TO THE FRONT LINES OF MENTAL HEALTH

When a local bank received a string of alarming emails from a customer claiming people were missing and unnamed criminals were harming a woman, bank staff knew they had to call 911. And deputies knew exactly who the sender was — because similar confusing, paranoid messages had arrived before. What followed was yet another reminder that law enforcement in our community now shoulders the heaviest load of the mental-health system. Welfare Check Raises Red Flags Deputies headed to the woman’s home with body cameras rolling — they specifically noted past incidents and the potential for volatile behavior from a man known to struggle with severe mental-health issues. The woman assured officers that the man had been taken to the hospital a week earlier and she hadn’t heard from him since. No crime had occurred — only confusion, fear, and another sign of how untreated mental illness spills into every corner of the community. SECOND CALL: A Domestic Dispute Turns Into a Mental Health Spiral Only hours later, a separate case forced deputies into crisis-response mode again. A man called 911 saying he’d received a text from a woman claiming she was fighting with her boyfriend at a home in Otway. Minutes later, another man reported that the same woman was under the influence and making threats. Then the woman herself called — repeatedly — demanding an ambulance but refusing to say what was wrong. She frantically spoke about someone named “Stacy in Adams County,” but dispatchers could find no such person and Adams County confirmed no calls from that address. When deputies arrived, they realized they weren’t dealing with a domestic incident at all — but a full-blown mental-health episode. They attempted to take the woman into custody for her own safety, but she began violently banging her head on the cruiser’s partition. Officers immediately changed course, abandoning plans to take her to the station and rushing her to the hospital instead. The Bigger Picture: Deputies Are the Front Line of a Broken System These two calls — just hours apart — illustrate the same problem Scioto County has been struggling with for years: We simply do not have enough mental-health resources. Hospitals overwhelmed Rehab centers full Few long-term treatment beds Crisis cases falling directly onto deputies Every day, officers respond not just to crime — but to people in psychosis, residents sending confused emails, callers making frantic statements, and individuals who truly need treatment instead of handcuffs. And once again, deputies handled both incidents with patience, caution, and compassion

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