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In recent decades, the nation's prisons have become packed with inmates who suffer from a diagnosed mental illness. As policymakers try to reverse that trend, they're looking at an array of different options, and here in Massachusetts, that's led to increased training on how police officers should interact with mentally ill individuals.

What each of these stories have in common is that they all arose in states-California, Massachusetts and New York-that do not have laws governing the licensing of law enforcement officers who engage in serious misconduct. Thus, it is up to each department to decide whether to apply discipline-and what kind of punishment, if any, is merited. Similarly, New Jersey, Hawaii and Rhode Island have no police licensing rules. The remainder- 44 states-do have the authority to remove the licenses of unfit police officers.

The Barnstable Police Department recently received a $126,121 grant from the state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security to train and update training for 82 telecommunicators, including dispatchers, and 10 new police officers in emergency medical dispatch. Everyone currently assigned to the communications desk has had the training, Sweeney said.

If State Police troopers want to do anything in their career, it's save a life. So when staff at Tufts Medical made the desperate call for troopers to escort Ryan Brooker's car into Boston, that his future depended on it, this became a story about State Police service, about doctors and nurses, and about a young man thankful to simply live his life again.