The city council of Tampa determined that they needed to reshape the #mentalhealth response calls of the city. John Dingfelder, who at the time was a city council member, proposed a $1 million fund to the police department in 2020 for responding to mental health calls. This is an impressive level of dedication that we need to continue living up to.
Mental health response calls are emergency calls, and they should be treated as emergencies. The wide range of possibilities and the unpredictable nature of the potential issues should make these incidents under the jurisdiction of the police - especially if they are willing to work with mental-health professionals on how to handle (and de-escalate) any issues that may arise. If situations are highly volatile or become violent, trained police should be the main presence on the scene. The bottom line is that an environment of safety must be achieved. Police departments may be the most well-equipped to establish safety in unpredictable scenes. When factoring in unpredictability, and the potential for violence to occur (whether to one’s self or outwardly towards others), having trained police present would be the most proactive approach.
Activists may defer to the argument that prior incidents prove that the presence of untrained police is threatening or intimidating, and ultimately unhelpful or dangerous. While those situations were undoubtedly unfortunate, it can be prevented in the future by allowing police to have proper, thorough mental-health training, so that they can truly be as supportive as possible.
In Seattle, the Ostling Act of 2015 mandated CIT (Crisis Intervention Teams) training for all police officers in Washington. The following year out of 9,300 crisis response calls, less than 8% resulted in an arrest. Even closer to us, the city council of Miami provided police with CIT training and the results were palpable. With every 5,000 CIT calls, there were only 10-20 arrests, compared to the 400-500 arrests that would have formerly taken place for those same 5,000 calls. Police can be trusted to handle cases the way they are expected, provided they are appropriately trained.
Overall, mental health cases should always be treated with sensitivity, irrespective of the perceived level of severity. Safety for all involved should always be the number one priority. In that case, there wouldn't be any better alternative, but involving well-trained police - and hopefully, Tampa will continue going above and beyond to make their police department more well-versed and fully prepared to handle mental-health calls.
