South Portland police encountered a possibly suicidal man atop the Casco Bay Bridge early this morning and successfully pulled the man away from the bridge’s edge before sending him for an evaluation, a department spokesman said this morning.

The incident highlights two major issues facing law enforcement: the use of force and the interaction of police with people experiencing a mental health crisis, according to Lt. Frank Clark.

Just after midnight, Officer Erin Curry found a 27-year-old South Portland man on the bridge standing on a fence supporter about 80 to 100 feet above a parking lot. After traffic was shut down on the bridge, Curry and two other officers, Kevin Sager and Sgt. Tom Simonds, talked to the man then, convinced they were facing a suicide threat, grabbed him.

After being warned by the police with the Taser device, the man stepped down. He was then transported to Maine Medical Center for a psychological evaluation.

According to Clark, South Portland police officers have filed 99 use of force and control reports so far this year. Only once has an officer deployed the Taser, though the threat of a Taser has been used five times in order to deescalate a situation, Clark said.

Also, this year the department reports 224 incidents of interactions with people experiencing some type of mental health crisis, a 29 percent increase over the same time period a year ago.

Clark said 19 of the department’s 52 authorized staff members have received crisis intervention training, with two more officers scheduled to attend the training next month.

– from staff reports