Mayor proposes street team to respond to wellness checks instead of police
This proposal is part the City’s effort to “implement alternatives to police responses to non-violent calls.”
One of the highest number of calls San Francisco police officers respond to are “well-being checks,” according to the city’s data close to 18,000 calls in 2019.
“The law enforcement officer would find out that they actually need medical care or they are experiencing a behavioral emergency,” said Lieutenant Jonathan Baxter with the San Francisco Fire department.
Monday, Mayor London Breed announced a proposal for a wellness response team that would work alongside the current street crisis response unit. This team will focus only on wellness checks.
Alameda City Council approves sweeping changes to 911 response
KTVU s Emma Goss reports.
ALAMEDA, Calif. - The Alameda City Council has approved sweeping reforms to how the city responds to certain 911 calls, voting to redirect some calls to resources that might not require armed officers.
The changes came Saturday in a special meeting held over Zoom, almost three weeks after 26-year-old Mario Gonzalez died after he was restrained by three Alameda police officers on April 19.
The council and Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft agreed Saturday they must move quickly to implement short-term and long-term changes.
Decided in a vote of 4 to 1, the council is moving forward with plans for the city to design and budget for a pilot program that they want ready by the end of June. The goal is to bring well-trained mental health officers, not armed police. to respond to certain 911 calls, and include a compendium of all mental health resources currently available to the police department.
"United Shades of America" returns tonight with an episode on policing in America. And while that may seem like we ripped it from all the recent headlines, in reality the headlines just haven't changed that much since the show went off the air last summer.