By Andrew Hay

Unarmed emergency responders Nevada Sanchez and Sean Martin take a police dispatch call in southeast Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city with high rates of violent crime and police shootings.

They have no enforcement powers or protective equipment and say they use their voices and brains to deescalate encounters with people in mental health and substance abuse crises.

On some occasions they may have saved lives.

…

Albuquerque, with the second highest rate of police killings among U.S. cities over 250,000 people, according to Mapping Police Violence, has set up one of the country’s most ambitious civilian responder programs to offer help rather than law enforcement to people in crisis.

Such initiatives have spread like “wildfire” across the United States since the 2020 murder of George Floyd highlighted police killings of people of color and those suffering from mental illness or substance abuse, said Alex Vitale, professor of sociology at Brooklyn College.

  • @Fredselfish
    101•7 months ago

    This is what we need. Defund the police and fund more of this instead.

    • @FadesEnglish
      10•7 months ago

      IT IS REAL and it’s not just NM!!

      For example, people like to shit on Portland for being a war-torn leftist hellscape, but they’re just hateful bigoted liars. Portland actually cares <3 (our cops don’t tho… fuck 'em)

      https://www.portland.gov/fire/streetresponse/psr-faq

      a new system of first responders – teams of medics and peer support specialists with training in de-escalation who can respond with compassion to 911 calls about people struggling with homelessness and behavioral health crises.

      Don’t even give the pigs a chance to shoot an innocent! Call Portland Street Response!

      https://portlandstreetresponse.org/

      Posted on April 26, 2022: A report on the first year of Portland Street Response was presented to City Council today. Here are a few random tidbits from the report:

      89% of calls to PSR required no further help from Police or Fire.
65% of calls to PSR involved someone experiencing homelessness.
None of the calls to PSR resulted in any arrests.
PSR staff followed up with 44 clients, making a total of 437 visits, helping them with housing applications, benefits referrals, and shelter referrals.
Nine clients found permanent housing thanks to PSR.

      here was the initial plan: https://portlandstreetresponse.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Portland-Street-Response-©-Street-Roots.pdf Since it’s initial pilots in 2019, it expanded to city-wide coverage in 2022. These things are possible within our communities we just need to push for the change!

      I’ve been hoping more cities take Portland’s path, and it looks like that is finally happening!