From the right: David, his father Carl, and his brother Kristopher

A few days ago, I called David Kerstetter's parents in Arizona. I wanted to know what they thought about the D.C. Police Department's sudden change in policy in how it handles mentally-ill residents. Their son had been suffering from mental-illness and was shot and killed by a police officer on Nov. 6 inside his home. The department's investigation into the shooting is "still ongoing," according to its Internal Affairs bureau.

After hearing the awful news on Nov. 6, the Kerstetters immediately flew from their Phoenix-area home to D.C.

They had to identify their son's body in the morgue. They had to bury him in Rock Creek Cemetery. And they went to his apartment to try and make sense of the scene the police left behind. They saw David's blood on his bathroom floor. They saw multiple bullet holes.

The family wanted answers so they asked to meet with Chief Cathy Lanier. They had read her statements in the Washington Post that seemed to quickly exonerate her officers. They never got to talk to her. Instead they got Assistant Chief Peter Newsham, who heads up Internal Affairs.

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D.C. police have decided to overhaul how it responds to mentally ill residents in crisis and police brass have requested training assistance from the Department of Mental Health, says DMH director Stephen T. Baron.

The decision follows two police-shooting deaths in recent months involving mentally ill victims. In November, police shot and killed David Kerstetter in his Logan Circle residence. In late January, an officer killed Osman Abdullahi inside an unlicensed group home near H Street NE.

The department plans to adopt what's called the "Crisis Intervention Team," or "CIT," model, which would train a core group of officers who would be assigned to respond to emergency situations involving the mentally ill, Baron says. Mental-health advocates and police watchdog groups have long pressed the department to adopt such a model.

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On the morning of November 6, two D.C. police officers responded to the home of David Kerstetter. The door to Mr. Kerstetter's condo had been been busted open. It looked suspicious. So the police were called. The officers were eventually confronted with a very simple scene: Mr. Kerstetter in his bedroom, allegedly holding a knife.

This scene turned into the police-involved shooting death of Mr. Kerstetter.

The Kerstetter shooting remains under investigation. But decades ago, in Memphis, another mid-size city, a similar scenario sparked outrage, political turmoil, a task force, and ultimately some real change. That same man-with-knife scenario ended up spurring major reforms within the Memphis Police Department. Those reforms have since become models for the rest of the country's police departments.

Read More "Will The Kerstetter Shooting Spark Reforms With D.C. Police?" »