Unarmed civilians to respond to crisis calls

Program calls for Fire Department, not police, to send team to handle mental health episodes

The Oakland Fire Department soon could be sending specialized units of civilians to respond to calls involving mental health crises and disorderly conduct so police officers won’t have to show up except in dangerous situations, the Oakland City Council has decided.

As part of its effort to reimagine Police Department responsibilities, the council unanimously agreed Tuesday to establish a pilot program that aims to de-escalate volatile situations through the dispatch of outreach workers, emergency medical technicians and other civilian specialists. The action came two weeks after the council signaled a willingness to place the Fire Department in charge of such teams.

“We are developing a model that’s unique to Oakland, provides a public health response to mental health crises and centers a community, civilian response to these crises,” said council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, who introduced the resolution and ordinance along with Council member Dan Kalb. “A community advisory board will ensure ongoing engagement in this program and will be led by those with experience providing mental health support to survivors of state violence and other impacted communities.”

Now it’ll be up to city administrators to set up the so-called Mobile Assistance Community Responders Of Oakland program and create a program manager position within the Fire Department to run it. City officials will explore whether to contract with Alameda County for mental health workers.

The one-year pilot program first will be tested in East Oakland, then expanded to West Oakland and, if possible, the Fruitvale

district.

Kalb said if it goes well, the program could could become a “robust” agency within the Fire Department.

“I think this is very exciting,” Kalb said. “We are going to do it, and I hope we become a model for the country.”

The decision also received the support of Oakland advocates who have argued that police shouldn’t be the ones responding to people having mental health breakdowns or other issues.

“It has taken way too long to get here,” said Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti Police Terror Project and executive director of the Justice Teams Network, adding she’s “overjoyed” that it’s finally here.

Brooks and others have called for such a program for years, but the idea picked up steam in the wake of high-profile police killings of Black Americans and other people of color in recent years, particular after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

Until recently, city administrators had hoped the council could select a nonprofit to operate such a program, but last month a couple of them that had been bidding for the job pulled out following a contentious public safety committee debate.

The focus since then shifted to having the city run the program instead of a third party, and this month the council decided after dozens of people spoke to have the Fire Department take it on.

The Fire Department already responds to emergencies 24 hours a day and

has the infrastructure for dispatching teams and carrying needed equipment such as radios, the council reasoned.

Instead of firefighters taking on the task of responding to calls, the plan is for civilian employees including emergency medical technicians hired by the department to do so. They would respond to nonviolent calls such as for “people who are disturbing the peace, intoxicated on the street, engaging in disorderly conduct or involved in nonviolent incidents at homeless encampments as well as requests for wellness checks,” according to a report from the city administration.

A report conducted by AH Datalytics and commissioned by the Anti Police Terror Project found that medical calls including mental health crises and welfare checks accounted for up to 10% of the total calls police responded to and took up a median of almost 42 minutes each.

Moving those calls to the new civilian team could free up police resources to focus on gun violence, Fortunato Bas said.

But there are still a lot of details to work out, including what hours the teams would be available and when situations would be handed off to police if they become violent.

A Fire Department memo says ongoing crisis and conflict de-escalation training for workers is imperative.

It’s also unclear how soon the program can start, although the memo estimates it could take several months.

But many have urged the city to move as quickly as possible.

In a matter of months, San Francisco started its own pilot program in November with the collaboration of the city’s public, fire and emergency management departments.

There is also the question of how to sustain the program beyond the pilot period, if it’s successful.

The $1.85 million initially earmarked for contracting the work to a third party could instead be given to the Fire Department to run it, but the city would have to find another revenue source to keep it going past a year.

That money could be redirected from the Police Department budget in the future. Creating civilian crisis response teams was among the many recommendations proposed by the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, formed last year to explore how the city could reallocate Police Department money to other services to improve public safety.

The ordinance to establish the MACRO program in the Fire Department must be formally adopted by the council, likely at its April 20 meeting.

“It has taken way too long to get here.”

— Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti Police Terror Project and executive director of the Justice Teams Network