2018 Mississippi Code
Title 41 - Public Health
Chapter 21 - Individuals With Mental Illness or an Intellectual Disability
Crisis Intervention Teams
§ 41-21-139. Determination of need to take person into custody to transport to single point of entry; immunity for persons acting in good faith in connection with detention of certain persons.
(1) If a CIT officer determines that a person is with substantial likelihood of bodily harm, that officer may take the person into custody for the purpose of transporting the person to the designated single point of entry serving the catchment area in which the officer works. The CIT officer shall certify in writing the reasons for taking the person into custody.
(2) A CIT officer shall have no further legal responsibility or other obligations once a person taken into custody has been transported and received at the single point of entry.
(3) A CIT officer acting in good faith in connection with the detention of a person believed to be with substantial likelihood of bodily harm shall incur no liability, civil or criminal, for those acts.
(4) Only CIT officers authorized to operate within a catchment area may bring persons in custody to the single point of entry for that catchment area. Law enforcement officers working outside the designated catchment area are not authorized to transport any person into the catchment area for the purpose of bringing that person to the single point of entry.
(5) Any person transported by a CIT officer to the single point of entry or any person referred by the community mental health center following guidelines of the collaborative agreements shall be examined by a physician, psychiatric nurse practitioner or psychiatric physician assistant. If the person does not consent to voluntary evaluation and treatment, and the examiner determines that the person is a mentally ill person, as defined in Section 41-21-61(e), the examiner shall then determine if that person can be held under the provisions of Section 41-21-67(5). All other provisions of Section 41-21-67(5) shall apply and be extended to include licensed psychiatric nurse practitioners and psychiatric physician assistants employed by the single point of entry, including protection from liability, as provided in this section, when acting in good faith. If the examiner determines that the person is with substantial likelihood of bodily harm because of impairment caused by drugs or alcohol and determines that there is no reasonable, less-restrictive alternative, the person may be held at the single point of entry until the impairment has resolved and the person is no longer with substantial likelihood of bodily harm. Persons acting in good faith in connection with the detention of a person with impairment caused by drugs or alcohol shall incur no liability, civil or criminal, for those acts.
