Jabir Hazziez is the kind of guy that’s good to have around. The Kansas City firefighter, reserve Jackson County deputy and member of the U.S. Naval Reserve clearly has a passion for keeping people safe. But he never expected to be in the spotlight for saving lives. Yet there he is.

Hazziez was with his fellow Thanksgiving travelers cruising at 30,000 feet toward Kansas City when a man foaming at the mouth lunged for the airliner's cabin door.

The man fought off flight attendants in multiple attempts to open the cabin door at the front of the aircraft.

Most of the passengers, including Jabir, weren’t even aware of the fact that something was wrong until a crewmember came on the intercom asking if anyone had medical training.

So Jabir Hazziez Jr. went up front to see if there was anything he could do to help.

What happened next came as no surprise to those who know and work with Hazziez. As the firefighter and reserve deputy walked toward the front of the plane, he saw a man pacing and holding his head in his hands. The man appeared to be in an "altered mental state" and clearly appeared agitated.

"He was trying to get to the door of the plane," Hazziez recalled in an interview with the Kansas City Star. "I grabbed a hold of him and tried to calm him down."

But the emotionally disturbed man got even more combative and knocked Hazziez into the cockpit door.

Using his law enforcement training, Hazziez put the man in a neck restraint and took him to the floor. Again, this only made the EDP more agitated. With Hazziez holding his upper body, the man continued kicking and trying to reach the door with his feet.

Thankfully at that point another passenger grabbed the man's legs. Together the two heroes held him for about 15 or 20 minutes until the plane could make an emergency landing in Memphis.

After responding officers took the disturbed man into custody, Hazziez found out that the suspect was not a terrorist but instead suffered an adverse reaction to a vaccine.

“I'm glad it was a medical situation and not a criminal incident," Hazziez told reporters.

"It could have been a lot worse." When the flight resumed, Hazziez was literally showered with pats on the back and thanks from his fellow passengers.

He even got a standing ovation when he got off at his destination.

The last thing any of the grateful passengers would consider is Hazziez's religious faith. He is a Muslim.

Like many American Muslims, Hazziez says he’s aware of the negative perceptions and prejudices of some in the post-9/11 world. But he also says what he did that day was in keeping with the teachings of Islam.

"We are supposed to help those in need and protect and help those who can't help themselves," he said.

As a result of his heroics, the Midland Islamic Council praised Hazziez for enhancing the image of American Muslims and helping to "affirm the many valuable and useful contributions they make to our nation." Hazziez was also honored in the form of a resolution from the Kansas City Council and Mayor Sly James honoring Hazziez for his actions.

As is almost always the case with real heroes, Hazziez says he did what anyone else would have done in the same situation and that all this “hero” stuff is a little over the top.

"I have a hard time calling myself a hero," he said. "I just reacted to the situation."

But Aasim Baheyadeen, who has known Hazziez for 35 years told reporters that when he heard what his friend had done he wasn’t at all surprised.

"Yeah, that sounded like him," Baheyadeen said. "He's a person who is held in great esteem."

Ditto says Kansas City Fire Chief Smokey Dyer. A 10-year department veteran, Hazziez is hazardous-materials specialist trained to handle some of the most dangerous and technically challenging incidents. It is the kind of job that requires quick thinking and the ability to remain calm under pressure.

"He is an outstanding firefighter," Dyer said.

"It was very characteristic of the performance we see on a weekly and monthly basis."

The same goes for Jackson County Sheriff Mike Sharp, who described Hazziez as a good deputy and a good guy.

"He stepped up to the plate and took control of the situation," Sharp said.

But no one is more proud of Hazziez than his family. "We have joked for years calling Jabir 'Mr. Safety,' " said his youngest sister, Rabiyyah Hazziez told the Star.    

But the nickname is no joke to the grateful passengers that got off their flight safely.

A new nationwide survey of 2,406 senior law enforcement officials 75 percent of whom were officers longer than 20 years, documents police and sheriffs are being tremendously overburdened with the unintended consequences of a policy change that in effect removed the daily care of our nation's severely mentally ill population from the medical community and placed it with the criminal justice system.

This policy change has caused a spike in the frequency of arrests of severely mentally ill persons and has become a major consumer of law enforcement resources nationwide.
The survey, “Management of the Severely Mentally Ill and its Effects on Homeland Security,” by Michael C. Biasotti who serves as the vice president of the New York State Chiefs of Police Association, calls for implementation of Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) laws as a way to improve care for people with mental illness, conserve law enforcement resources, and keep patients and public safer.

The Assisted Outpatient Treatment laws allow courts to order a subset of severely mentally ill individuals who have a past history of dangerous behavior, arrest, incarceration or multiple hospitalizations to accept treatment as a condition of living in the community.

According to the survey:
* 84.28 percent (1,866) of the law enforcement respondents said there been an increase in the mentally ill population over the length of their career.      

* 63.03 percent (1,391) of respondents reported the amount of time that their department spends on calls for service involving individuals with mental illness increased during their career. An additional 17.72 percent reported that the time spent had substantially increased, totaling 70.7 percent (1,782) of respondents reporting an increase.

* 56 percent said the increase in calls is due to the inability to refer mentally ill to treatment and 61 percent said more persons with mental illness are being released to the community.

The officers claimed that mental illness related calls take significantly longer than larceny, domestic dispute, traffic, and other calls.

The need for the law enforcement community to run a shadow mental health system is putting an unsustainable drain on law enforcement resources and diverting them from other important security tasks.

Quotes from officers surveyed put the statistics in human perspective:

"The biggest problem does not lie with law enforcement. The problem is found when citizens can't get assistance due to the "danger" requirement. When they have nowhere else to turn they call the police to handle the issue. This takes a large amount of time to then pull strings to try and get help for the citizens."

"Catch and release attitude of MH professionals, i.e., anti-suicide contracts, promise not to do it again, etc."

"Our jurisdiction is extremely rural. If a person requires in-patient treatment, then it is a four-hour drive to the hospital, and our ambulance service will not transport. Given that most evaluations take two hours at a minimum that leaves an officer out of service for a minimum of  ten hours. Because we have only eight officers including the Chief, it also means calling someone in on their days off to make the transport."

"Police seem to be the only resource that is mandated to be trained and deal with these individuals in the field, usually because there is a disturbance that prompts the call for these individuals. However, EMS, local hospitals, etc, are not required the same level of participation in the de-escalation of a mental event as the police are."
We can get them to the psych unit, but the doctors let them go due to the "dangerous to self or others" criteria."

"The whole process is too long. It Takes too long to have the patient evaluated. Takes to long to have the committal paper file with the court. Takes too long to find a facility. Takes too long to have the paper obtained once a judge signs it. Then when the individual makes it to the next facility we get to go through the same thing and length of time on the other end. On average it takes approx 10 hours. With a small department we have 2 or 3 people working. Basically one of my officers is tied up in this process and I have another officer at time working without backup."

"The problems are not so much the obstacles but rather when we get them to the hospital we have to sit with them, depending on the incident that occurred, and we have a limited about of officers on duty. And once they are committed, there is a matter of time before they are released and we end of dealing with them again in another situation."

"In the past, if an officer could articulate to the crisis counselor that a mental subject was a danger to him or others then they would respond and make arrangements for bed space. Now, they rarely come out unless it is an uncontrolled violent person. In some cases, a crisis counselor has asked to speak to the mental subject over the officer's cell phone and "diagnosed' the mental subject based on that short phone conversation.

The problem here is that the officer has made observations and noted the comments made by the mental subject. Most officers would not ever release a dangerous person despite whatever diagnosis is made over the phone. So, the mental subject either gets arrested or goes to a local hospital for evaluation. This wastes resources and takes more of the officer's time--all in the name of protecting one's self from liability."

You can read the full report at http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/

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