Two Kitsap County lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require police officers to receive training on dealing with mentally ill people.

Sen. Christine Rolfes and Rep. Sherry Appleton recently introduced a bill that would require crisis intervention training for police officers, and Appleton recalled the fatal shooting of Douglas Ostling and the lack of police training in the tragedy.

Ostling, a Bainbridge man who had a history of mental health issues, was killed by Bainbridge police in 2010 after they responded to a 911 call and Ostling met officers at his apartment door with an ax.

“This could save lives,” Appleton said of House Bill 1348, a bill sponsored by the Poulsbo Democrat.

“It’s hard for the untrained person to spot mental illness, and police are rightly trained to react instinctively to threats to the public or to themselves. We want to give them new tools to avoid tragedies like the one involving Doug Ostling,” Appleton said. “No one wants to have other grief-stricken families or traumatized, heartbroken officers.”

If the bill becomes law, police officers would receive eight hours of initial crisis intervention training with two additional hours incorporated into existing online yearly training.

“This training has been reinstated in Kitsap County and has proved to be very successful,” said Rolfes, a Bainbridge Democrat and sponsor of Senate Bill 5311.

“It is also a valuable part of the Legislature’s broader effort to make improvements and increase funding to programs that not only help individuals suffering from mental illness, but provide some support to their families who want the best for them,” Rolfes said.

In recent years, law enforcement officers have experienced a marked increase in confrontations with mentally ill individuals, and Rolfes and Appleton said the training will help officers identify and de-escalate situations where someone may be behaving erratically, but are not necessarily a threat.

The parents and aunt of Doug Ostling testified at the House and Senate hearings, and recalled the events of the evening he was shot and killed by police officers.

“By passing this bill, you are opening up one little window of hope for a person that might be able to get treated,” said William Ostling, Doug’s father. “We tried to introduce this law a couple of years ago, but it did not pass. We have to make this mandatory.”

According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, 1 in 17 Americans suffers from severe mental illness, including schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or bipolar disorder.