Director Jenifer McShane describes her new documentary Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops as “a buddy cop film with strong social issues.” The buddies are officers Ernie Stevens and Joe Smarro, partners …
, partners in the San Antonio Police Department. The social issues have to do with the unit Ernie and Joe work in, a Crisis Intervention Team that specializes in responding to mental health-related incidents. Early in the film Stevens and Smarro get a call about a mentally ill man pacing in a courthouse.
“It’s happening all over the place,” McShane notes. “I feel we’re really doing everyone a disservice, including the first responder, sending [officers] into situations without any real knowledge as to what they’re seeing and options for handling it,” McShane comments. “So we’re kind of setting up a bad scenario for everybody and not just the person who’s in crisis.”
And if the officer can validate that and let them know, ‘I’m here and I’m listening to you…I want you to tell me how I can help you. And if it’s within my abilities, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’” Smarro’s sense of empathy comes from having dealt with mental health issues himself, stemming from a childhood of physical and sexual abuse. He’s remarkably candid about the trauma he suffered.
“My name’s Joe Smarra. I’ve been with SAPD since 2005,” Smarra says by way of introduction. “Before that I was in the Marine Corps. Oorah!”
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