What To Read This Week
1. New Polling Results Reveal Why Voters Support Community Safety Departments.
For the past two weeks, Safer Cities described new polling results which showed that voters:
This week, we continue our deep dive into public opinion on community safety departments by analyzing why voters support community safety departments:
89% of voters agree that “community safety departments allow police departments to focus on solving serious crimes.”
84% of voters agree that “community safety departments will meet unmet needs because some people who need help are too scared to call 911 because they’re scared of the police.”
81% of voters agree that “community safety departments reduce the likelihood that a mental health crisis will result in injury or death.”
Approximately three-in-four voters agree that community safety departments make cities safer.
We split participants into two groups to determine whether framing the question in terms of projected safety versus projected feelings of safety would significantly alter the results. It didn’t.
76% agree: “My city would be safer if we had a community safety department.”
74% agree: “My city would feel safer if we had a community safety department.”
Roughly seven-in-ten voters agree that community safety departments make cities more orderly.
We split participants into two groups to determine whether framing the question in terms or projected order versus projected feelings of order would significantly alter the results. It didn’t.
72% agree: “My city would be more orderly if we had a community safety department.”
73% agree: “My city would feel more orderly if we had a community safety department.”
2. Two New Mobile Crisis Response Programs Launch; One To Expand
Searchlight New Mexico’s Joshua Bowling and Vanessa Sánchez profile the launch of Project LIGHT, a new unarmed mobile crisis response team in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which is being lauded as a win-win for both the police and the effort to beef-up mental health services in the city: “What understaffed police force wouldn’t embrace the opportunity to make sure their officers can focus on other, more dangerous calls, advocates ask. And if someone with mental health training can offer sorely needed resources to people in crisis, what city wouldn’t welcome that?”
The team, which is based in the city’s fire department and consists of two social workers, two paramedics and a case manager, will “provide residents with intervention for mental health crises and connect people with resources.” Battalion Chief Matthew Hiles, who oversees Project Light, says that the team will help with “talking people through crisis, providing education on disorders or medications, linking people with community resources, and transporting them to mental health centers like a hospital or the Crisis Triage Center.”
Bowling and Sánchez recount the devastating set of facts that helped catalyze Project Light’s launch:
“It was just after 6:30 one evening last April when Las Cruces police officer Jared Cosper responded to a mental health call. The family of Amelia Baca, a 75-year-old grandmother with dementia, had called 911, saying she appeared to be off her medication and was threatening them. They needed help.
Cosper, trained in crisis intervention, according to a subsequent lawsuit, arrived at the Bacas’ front door and instructed family members to step outside. Police body camera video shows Baca’s granddaughter thanking the officer and asking him to “be very careful with her.” The elderly woman — who spoke only Spanish — came to the door, a kitchen knife in each hand. ‘Drop the fucking knife,’ Cosper shouted. As the family begged and screamed in protest, he shot and killed her.”
It’s encounters like this one that led Las Cruces city councilor Johana Bencomo to champion Project LIGHT. As she told Searchlight New Mexico: “Police are not equipped to respond to behavioral health calls, even if we invested millions of more dollars in training and in policy … They are not behavioral health professionals.”
“Tulsa Fire Department, Family & Children's Services Teaming Up For New 24/7 De-Escalation Emergency Response.” The unarmed first responder team is being formed to “help address Tulsa’s staggering number of mental health crisis calls,” Andrea Eger reports for Tulsa World. The team is composed of trained medics and clinicians whose goal is to “try to reduce the number of people who experience a mental health crisis and end up in jail.” The team, which is based in the city’s fire department, all have “at least 15 years’ experience and the same crisis intervention training that police officers receive[.]” The program’s director, Tulsa Fire Captain Justin Lemery, told Tulsa World that in addition to de-escalation, the team has “case managers who can follow-up with these folks and see how they’re doing or if any further referrals are needed.”
“Portland's Unarmed Crisis Response Team Looks To Go 24/7.” Writing for the Portland Business Journal, Demi Lawrence details the planned expansion of the Portland Street Response program, which “dispatches mental health professionals, community health workers and peer specialists in lieu of police to certain 911 calls.” The program currently operates daily, but has seen a 700% increase in calls coming in year-over-year. Robyn Burek, the program’s director, told the Portland Business Journal that the demand is driven by the fact that “minor disturbance or mental health calls don't warrant a police officer's presence [and] really were never designed to go to police or fire, they just didn't have the right responder in place to take them.” To meet the demand, the program intends to expand to 24/7 response over the next few months.
3. Excellent Television News On Narcan Access
As part of a multi-edition effort to highlight compelling, fair, and informative local television news reporting, here are two must-watch segments on expanding access to Narcan, a life-saving drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. As Mills Hayes reported for Fox News, just last week, “The FDA approved the Narcan nasal spray for over-the-counter sales. Doctors and first responders say making this opioid reversal drug more available could help lower the number of people dying from overdoses.”
“Narcan To Be Provided At All LAUSD Schools After Recent Teen Overdoses.” For ABC7 in Los Angeles, Rob Hayes reported on Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho’s announcement that “every classroom from K through 12 will now be stocked with Narcan, an opioid overdose drug that can literally be the difference between life and death.” Carvalho’s new plan follows the overdose death on campus of a 15-year-old sophomore at an area high school. Hayes added that four other students recently overdosed on similar drugs near the high school, but received the right medical care and survived. Carvalho said: “We are experiencing a devastating epidemic… this is a safe solution.”
“NYC Bars Stocking Up On Opioid Overdose Rescue Kits.” For CBS2 in New York, Zinnia Maldonado reported on NYC’s “Narcan behind every bar program, a city program that puts free Narcan, a treatment that reverses the effects of an overdose, in the hands of bar employees [who are] trained by the Department of Public Health on how to administer the life-saving medication.” Maldonado also interviewed Meghan Joye, a neighborhood bar owner who explained why her business is participating in the program: “We are part of the community and we want to keep our patrons safe.”
