Appomattox County Sheriff Donald Simpson addressed a crucial and escalating problem on Monday evening while speaking to the board of supervisors at their regular monthly meeting.

“We have an untenable situation (involving) the mental health of teens in our county,” he informed the board.

He explained that the Appomattox County Sheriff’s Office sometimes receives two kinds of orders involving teens in the midst of a mental health crisis: Emergency Custody Order (ECO) and Temporary Detention Order (TDO). When the department receives one of these orders, deputies take the teen into custody and take them to a hospital and/or a mental health facility.

Simpson provided the case of one teen as an example of the problem that is becoming too frequent across the county and across the commonwealth. “A Temporary Detention Order was issued for an Appomattox County female juvenile on Oct. 10 at 0055 (12:55 a.m.),” he said.

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