| Ithaca, New York Launches New Crisis Responder Team For Mental Health Calls For Service, That “Aims To Reduce Reliance On Traditional Policing When A Law Enforcement Response Is Not Appropriate.” Finger Lakes News reports on the new three-year pilot of a mobile crisis response team, called Responders Offering Outreach, Trust, and Support, or ROOTS, that will respond to some mental health and behavioral health calls for service. City leaders explained that the new responder team will be “integrated… into [core] first response systems [to] ensure that all calls for service can receive the most appropriate response,” and can be “dispatched through 911, requested by the Ithaca Police Department, or self-engage” when they see a person in crisis, ensuring that people “receive immediate support… and remain connected to social services.” The goal of the team is to operate as a third branch of public safety in the city, and is aimed at “reduc[ing] reliance on traditional policing when a law enforcement response is not appropriate” and “working alongside traditional policing… the mental health responder team, and other [homeless] outreach programs across the city.” Los Angeles City Council “Makes Permanent Its Unarmed Crisis-Response Pilot Program, Diverting [Mental Health] Emergency Calls … Away From The Los Angeles Police Department To Specialized Clinicians.” My News LA reports on LA City Council’s unanimous approval to make the city’s mobile crisis response team “permanent” and “establish a centralized dispatch system that aims to improve response to emergency calls by sending out appropriate teams” for the various crises that enter the emergency response system. This is the first step toward “consolidating all unarmed crisis response initiatives into a single, citywide program… [which include] well-being checks… homelessness… mental and/or behavioral crisis, conflicts that could be resolved through mediation… [so that when] residents call 911 dispatchers, [they] can then divert calls to a centralized center” which then sends the right responder team to the crisis. The establishment of the team as a permanent branch of the city’s public safety infrastructure follows a successful pilot, that city leaders called a “resounding success,” and saw the team respond to “more than 17,000 calls for service with over 96% resolved without police involvement,” since the team first launched in 2024. City leaders also highlighted that the program also saves taxpayer dollars, explaining that it “costs taxpayers roughly $85 per hour to deploy LAPD officers [to mental health-related calls], whereas the same response from a specialized unarmed crisis response team costs approximately $35 per hour.” Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson explained to the newspaper that “The data is incontrovertible and unassailable… we’ve done the work now… the two can exist side-by-side, and when appropriate, either [police or mobile crisis response] can show up” to a crisis depending on the need. |
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| Columbus, Ohio, “Shifting More 911 Responses From Police To Clinicians.” For The Columbus Dispatch, Jordan Laird reports on Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, and the City Council, announcing an expansion of the city’s mobile crisis response team, following a successful pilot, “shifting more 911 responses from police to clinicians,” and now the team will “respond to calls without police escorts for the first time.” The mobile crisis response team, which launched in 2024, has responded to “23,000 calls, or about 10% to 20% of all appropriate calls due to limited hours and scope.” Mayor Ginther, a champion for the team, explained to the newspaper, that “every emergency circumstance requires trained expert attention,” with some emergencies requiring a police officer, like robberies or homicides, while other crises, like mental health calls for service, require different expertise: “when an emergency involves an individual experiencing trauma, or mental health or addiction crisis, a trained clinician is best positioned to help… when someone needs stabilization and ongoing support, they should get a pathway to services, not a stay in a jail cell.” |