WHEN YOU CALL 9-1-1, WHO DO YOU WANT TO SHOW UP?
If you were designing a system to protect your family, would you create one making it 20 times more likely that you’d see a cop than a social worker
when calling to report someone in psychological distress?
How we frame a challenge shapes how we respond. And when it comes to problems with how police interact with communities of color, the wrong frame has led us to an inadequate response.
The “police accountability” package the General Assembly passed in July represents a step forward. Setting up an independent Office of Inspector General to investigate all uses of deadly force, empowering our Police Officer Standards and Training council to revoke credentials of officers found to have used excessive force, requiring body cameras for all police, banning chokeholds and allowing civil suits in cases against officers who clearly violated the law will increase accountability.
But chokeholds were banned in Minneapolis, police anti-bias training in place, and bodycams and cellphone video cameras were trained on Officer Derek Chauvin as he killed George Floyd over the course of nearly nine brutal minutes in May.
So we already know limits on chokeholds and requirements for bodycams will not end police brutality or make Black and brown people safer.
We need to step back to ask which personnel, with what training, should respond to emergency calls.
Consider this: If you call 9-1-1 in Hartford because you see someone in psychiatric distress (e.g. disoriented, suicidal, psychotic), there’s an 89% chance EMS personnel will respond. But there’s also a 65% likelihood that police with sidearms will show up — and less than a 3% chance that a social worker with training in crisis intervention will be there, according to data from the city of Hartford’s Emergency Services and Telecommunications Department from July 2019 through June 30, 2020.
If you were designing a system to protect your family, would you create one making it 20 times more likely that you’d see a cop than a social worker when calling to report someone in psychological distress?
And, if you were becoming a police officer, would you want an emergency response system that sent you out to address psychiatric situations as often as crimes in progress?
Most police officers want to prevent and solve crimes.
Most citizens want emergency responders who are fully prepared to address the issue that led them to dial 9-1-1.
So why not build a system that reflects these goals? Why not fund “emergency response teams” whose training reflects community needs?
With such a system in place, zoning enforcement officers would respond to calls about excessive noise — and issue tickets to residents failing to bring down the volume.
For juveniles not in school and getting in trouble, social workers with youth development backgrounds would be first responders.
For psychiatric calls, emergency medical teams would be the first people on the scene.
This approach need not cost more than our current system — indeed, it would probably cost less.
And the benefits, in terms of reduced confrontations, fewer incidents of violence, increased responsiveness and community trust, would be immense.
Right now, a challenge underlying countless complaints of police brutality is this: We have officers responding to an insanely broad array of situations, many of which don’t align with the paramilitary training, equipment and organization we give them.
Why should police officers be rushing to scenes where children are clinically depressed, seniors are disoriented or fenders are dented? Why not have individuals with specialized training be the first to arrive?
In today’s polarized environment, some act as if seeking to improve emergency response is “anti-police,” while opposing change means protecting those in blue.
In fact, emergency response that better reflects community needs helps everyone. Police are safer because they’re deployed in situations that best match their training. Citizens are safer because first responders are those with the skills most needed at the moment. And witnesses need not wonder whether, in calling 9-1-1, they are making a bad situation worse.
Some have trouble imagining emergency response that involves zoning enforcement officers and social workers. But that shouldn’t stop us. Before 1970, hospitals had no physicians specializing in emergency care, and most organizations lacked disaster recovery specialists.
Yet it’d be hard to find anyone today who’d want to go back to those days. Specialists save lives.
State and municipal governments need to step up and establish specialized emergency response teams now.
How much safer would all of us be if 9-1-1 involved expert teams, attuned to specific challenges, in sync with the need for de-escalation? Such an approach would be better for all.
Andy Fleischmann is president & CEO of Nutmeg
Big Brothers Big Sisters, a nonprofit mentoring organization that serves children in 132 of Connecticut’s cities and towns. He served 12 terms in the Connecticut General Assembly representing West Hartford and was House Chairman of the Education Committee.