For three years, Lewiston police have been able to call upon Laurie Cyr-Martel during tense standoffs. Now, she’s written a manual to help cops respond to such situations.
By Mark LaFlamme
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Laurie Cyr-Martel knelt beside the bleeding man and pressed surgical dressing against his wound. At the same time, she listened to the 35-year-old as he talked about the problems in his life.

It happened on a cool night last week, and the bleeding man was lying on Park Street. He had sliced his throat with a box cutter and then called his sister on a cell phone to say goodbye.

“This is a man who really wanted to die,” Cyr-Martel said. “He missed the jugular vein but it was a very deep cut.”

Cyr-Martel spoke to the man, soothing and assuring him. She understood his pain, she told him. After a while, the words sunk in.

“His eyes just welled up with tears,” Cyr-Martel said. “He was hurting. He did not care if he lived to see another day.”

The man did not die from his wound and was taken for psychiatric treatment. Another night in the life of the police department’s crisis intervention officer.

In her three years on the job in Lewiston, Cyr-Martel has seen enough to fill the pages of a book. In fact, she has. Her “Responding to Emotionally Disturbed Persons: a Manual for Law Enforcement Personnel” was published in September.

Since she was assigned to the job with the Lewiston Police Department, Cyr-Martel has seen her share of people in crisis – domestic fights, armed standoffs, suicide attempts and abused children. Cyr-Martel goes to those scenes with what other officers call her “little bag of tricks.”

But it’s not magic or trickery. Cyr-Martel has been working in the mental health field for nearly two decades. She has been working in emergency medicine since 1973. Currently, she is assigned to the Lewiston police force through the Maine Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services.

“She’s a great resource for the officers,” said Lewiston Deputy Chief Mike Bussiere. “They’re out there dealing with people who are often at their worst – whether they’re just having a bad day or they’re off their medication. Laurie’s ability to talk to those people and calm them down has been an invaluable service.”

There is her training and experience, sure. But other cops point out that Cyr-Martel seems to have a natural talent for talking with people who tend to express themselves through violence.

“Being able to connect with someone who is unstable, and being able to find a positive solution is very rewarding,” Cyr-Martel says.

Police and other emergency officials often call on her for help with a situation involving persons with mental illness. Now, through her book, Cyr-Martel has found another way to share her skills with cops and other emergency workers.

Soon, every police officer in Lewiston will have a copy of the book. Child welfare workers have expressed interest in the book. So have trainers at some police academies here and in other states.

From local crime scenes

“The feedback I was getting suggested that the officers and others would benefit if they had a handbook they could pick up and refer to,” Cyr-Martel said. “I tried to make it as user-friendly as possible. It’s not big and cumbersome like a textbook.”

Although the contents of the book would apply to any police or emergency agency, it definitely has a local flavor with photos taken at local crime scenes and other tense situations that Cyr-Martel has been involved in since coming to Lewiston.

But overall, the book is a culmination of her decades of experience. In 1973, Cyr-Martel began her career as a volunteer with an ambulance and search-and-rescue team in Connecticut. After years in California, she settled in Maine and earned advanced degrees in behavioral science and counseling psychology. She has worked as a child therapist, crisis counselor and clinical coordinator of a mental health crisis team.

“She has the ability and the contacts to get people in crisis the help they need,” Bussiere said.

Cyr-Martel is a member of the New England Crisis Negotiators Association and other organizations involving work with emotionally troubled people.

A lot of her training and schooling is put into practical use in her book. But her experiences in Lewiston also show through as she tackles topics like schizophrenia, substance abuse, suicide, homicide, juvenile issues and death notices.

“This is the ultimate job for me here,” Cyr-Martel said. “It combines all of my background skills. And every day, it’s something new. The work is unpredictable.”

Tolerance and patience

Five nights a week, Martel teams up with another Lewiston police officer and patrols the city. She stays close to the downtown area, but goes wherever she is needed. It might be somebody high on drugs and threatening mayhem. It may be a hostage situation or a suicide attempt. The kinds of situations where a police officer might be unsure how to proceed.

“It’s unfair because cops aren’t trained to be social workers but they’re often expected to perform in that role all the time,” Cyr-Martel said. “If you don’t know how to handle a call, in all likelihood it’s not going to have a positive outcome.”

“The officers have become more tolerant and patient with people who are emotionally unstable,” she said. “I think they’re seeing these situations in a different light.”

When Cyr-Martel was in grad school, she began compiling notes and data for a book. For four years, she sorted through it all, deciding what was relevant and what wasn’t. After joining the Lewiston police force, she got the material together. She began approaching publishing companies. Staggs Publishing – a group that mostly publishes law enforcement manuals – was among them.

“They said they were interested,” Cyr-Martel said. “Once the publisher got ahold of it, we went back and forth a few times before we got to a mock-up version of the book. The whole process wasn’t as bad as people told me it might be.”

It took from March until September to get the book edited and packaged for distribution. Cyr-Martel gained the copyright through an office in Washington, D.C.

Cyr-Martel is already thinking about other projects. She said she may write similar books but geared toward child protective-care providers, for instance. In the meantime, she’s happy working in Lewiston, trying to ease the pain of sufferers and making police work a little easier for the other officers.

“If they’ll have me and if the state keeps my position, I’ll probably be 80-years-old and still out there on the bridges and trestles,” Cyr-Martel said. “It’s work I really enjoy. It’s a job I love.”

mlaflamme@sunjournal.com