The commander of the Honolulu Police Department’s training academy is crediting officers who detained a suspect standing on the edge of a freeway overpass in Kalihi on Monday with responding properly to prevent other injuries.

“They did a good job,” said Maj. William Baldwin, who was not involved in Monday’s incident. “They didn’t rush in. They took their time. It looked like there was one person trying to develop a rapport with that person.”

A 19-year-old Waipahu man, arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder, remained in police custody Tuesday at a hospital where he was taken for a mental evaluation. He has not been charged. Police arrested him at about 7:30 a.m. Monday on suspicion of second-degree murder and a $5,000 warrant.

On Tuesday the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office identified a homicide victim as Riley Meade, 48, of Kalihi. Meade, who had heart disease, died after his heart stopped beating during a violent struggle, the office said. His death was ruled a homicide.

Police said Meade and the suspect were fighting in the parking lot of Aloha Island Mart at North School Street and Kamehameha IV Road in Kalihi before 5 a.m. Monday, and Meade was taken with head injuries to a hospital where he died.

Police chased the suspect to the Gulick Avenue bridge over the H-1 freeway, where he stopped on the edge of the overpass. Officers talked with him while all Ewa-bound lanes of the H-1 were closed. The officers later wrestled the man to the ground and took him into custody. The freeway’s Ewa-bound lanes were closed for nearly an hour.

Baldwin, the Honolulu police training academy commander, said that in the past year police have significantly stepped up recruit training for dealing with people in crisis because of a rise in cases related to mental illness, both locally and nationally.

Recruits now go through 24 hours of crisis training over three days. Previously, they underwent three hours. Officers also undergo a three-hour annual refresher course, which began in 2007.

Baldwin said the training teaches officers how to deal with someone behaving psychotically, contemplating suicide or going through a traumatic episode, such as a substance-induced psychosis.

The officers are taught there is no time limit for resolving such situations. Rather, they focus on de-escalating an incident by establishing a rapport with the suspect while assessing body language and speech, and maintaining eye contact, Baldwin said.

He said officers also must be ready to react when conditions change, as in Monday’s incident when officers pulled the man from the outside of the railing back onto the bridge.

Responding officers will designate a contact officer to establish a dialogue and a “cover officer” to monitor the scene for public and officer safety.

The training, Baldwin said, helps officers protect the lives of those in crisis. He cited a 2008 incident in New York in which a police officer used a stun gun on a distraught man who then fell from a building ledge and died.

“We don’t want that to happen,” Baldwin said. “We show restraint, and again we want to develop that rapport … and de-escalate.”