Planning underway for Marcus Alert implementation

The program seeks to improve responses to mental health crises

Area counties are working to become early implementers of the Marcus Alert program that aims to treat behavioral health crises as an illness rather than a legal issue.

The MARCUS (Mental health Awareness, Response and Community Understanding Services) Alert is a component of the Marcus David-Peters Act, which is named after the unarmed 24-year-old Black school teacher who was shot and killed by Richmond police during a mental health crisis.

The five-county region of Culpeper, Rappahannock, Madison, Orange and Fauquier counties was selected as one of five early implementers of the Marcus Alert. Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services is spearheading efforts to establish the program with the help of a $600,000 state grant.

Scheduled to be enacted locally on Dec. 1, RRCS Executive Director Jim LaGraffe said community partners are working to establish protocols and a required database in which residents can voluntarily enter health information. For example, he explained a parent could submit that their child is autistic and may not respond to cues in traditional ways.

“For law enforcement, information is everything,” he said.

Minorities are less likely to have a positive outcome when police respond to mental health situations. LeGraffe said a major focus of the program is addressing these racial disparities. The Marcus Alert will also create co-responder models in which a behavioral health specialist responds to certain situations alongside police. This, he said, would allow a clinician to provide proper treatment instead of someone being arrested.

Culpeper NAACP President Dr. Uzziah Harris said it will be great for police and behavioral health professionals to no longer sit on opposite sides of the fence.

“Engagement has to be much more humane and much less militaristic,” he said.

… Culpeper Sheriff Scott Jenkins said he has been supportive of Marcus Alert and has worked with other departments and mental health professionals for months to help initiate it. While there are positive aspects to the program, he said it is not a “fix-all” as Culpeper is in “desperate need” of funding for mental health services such as bed space for those committed with temporary detention orders. Sometimes, he said officers sit with such individuals for hours or days waiting for a bed to open and them to be treated.

“We need help and they’re not doing a damn thing in Richmond to fund the areas that we need the funding. They’re trying to create other pipe dreams for solutions and it’s not what we need … They’re doing the stuff that they think maybe will have an impact down the road … but what they know will be a solution, they’re not willing to commit money to,” Scott Jenkins said.

While Culpeper Police Chief Chris Jenkins said Marcus Alert is “a great concept” that the department supports, he noted that making it work could be difficult. Although he said officers are not mental health experts and probably should not respond to such calls, there will never be enough mental health clinicians to respond 24/7.

“We can improve it but we’re never going to be able out of the business,” he said.

Chris Jenkins added that Marcus Alert opens up discussions regarding situations to which police should respond. He said society has defaulted to calling police amid any situation gone wrong because “there’s just absolutely nobody else to call.” In Culpeper, he said nobody other than the police will pick up the phone after 5 p.m.

The five-county region including Rappahannock was selected as one of five early implementers of the Marcus Alert.