State could create a new hotline for mental health calls

SACRAMENTO >> California would take a step toward having counselors rather than police respond to people experiencing mental health crises under a bill backed Monday by gun-violence prevention groups.

Callers who dial or text 9-8-8 would be connected with counselors and could be assisted by mobile crisis support teams staffed with mental health professionals.

Backers say it’s a better option than calling 9-1-1, where police are often the first responders and advocates say the situation too often rapidly turns violent. Those who still call the emergency line but report a mental health crisis would be transferred to 9-8-8 and dispatchers for both lines would be able to decide if police, fire or medical responders are needed.

“This bill can save lives that we are losing to suicide and shootings by police,” said Krystal LoPilato, volunteer leader with California Moms Demand Action.

California’s 9-8-8 bill is the state effort to create 988 hotlines by July 2022 under new new rules from the Federal Communications Commission and Congress. It would be funded through a surcharge on phone lines similar to 911. Counties would separately have to provide the crisis services and mobile crisis teams.

The proposal is named after Miles Hall, a 23-yearold Black man who was fatally shot by Walnut Creek police in 2019, Democratic Assemblywoman

Rebecca Bauer-Kahan of Orinda told members of the group and affiliated Students Demand Action during their virtual advocacy day.

“He was shot and killed in the middle of a schizophrenic episode when his mother was just trying to get him help,” Bauer-Kahan said.

Spokesmen for California police chiefs and sheriffs said their organizations have not taken positions on it.

Other efforts also are trying to create alternatives to police for incidents that don’t require a law enforcement presence.

Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager is trying again this year to pass what she’s calling the Community Response Initiative to Strengthen Emergency Systems (CRISES) Act, after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it last year.

Her measure would create a pilot program of grants to community organizations that could step in instead of law enforcement for mental health, substance abuse and other nonviolent episodes. Newsom disagreed with how the proposed three-year, $250,000 minimum grant program would have been administered.

The gun-violence groups took no position on Kamlager’s bill even as they sought increased funding for other violence intervention and gang prevention programs.

They are also backing legislation that would require every school district to send home information about securely storing firearms.