Crime Chicago mental health professionals will be dispatched on 911 calls instead of cops following defund the police protests - Must Supply Their Own Butterfly Nets

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Mental health professionals will be sent out to respond to some 911 calls in Chicago instead of cops, following defund the police protests and a number of police killings of mentally-unwell people.

The city is launching a two-part 'alternative response' pilot program this fall that takes a more public health approach to responding to 911 calls for mental health emergencies.

The initiatives aim to both ensure people suffering a mental health crisis get the help they need rather than face criminalization and free police up for tackling crime, amid a mass exodus of cops from the force.

A total of 363 officers retired from the Chicago Police Department between January and June this year, with another 56 on track to quit in July, according to figures from the police pension board.

If the trend continues, the mass departure will even dwarf the 560 retirements last year, when swathes of officers quit amid protests over the police murder of George Floyd and demands to defund the police.

With only around 13,000 cops remaining, Fox News reported that Chicago's 117,000 gang members now outnumber officers by roughly 10 to one, at a time when the Windy City is facing a surge in violent crime.

More than 100 people were shot and at least 17 killed over July 4 weekend alone, while shootings have spiked 11 percent so far in 2021 compared to the same period last year.

Chicago's new 'alternative response' programs will involve dispatching a team that includes a mental health professional and a paramedic to mental health-related calls, reported Chicago Sun-Times.

One program will involve sending a paramedic and a mental health clinician for 'behavioral health calls.'

A second program will involve sending a paramedic with a 'recovery specialist' for calls relating to substance abuse, the outlet reported.

It is not fully clear how 911 dispatchers will determine which calls should be responded to by police officers or by mental health professionals.

However, the city said mental health professionals will be stationed inside 911 call centers to help monitor situations and, from October, will be responding to some 911 calls by phone.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's office and the Chicago Police Department for more information.

The landmark program marks the first time 911 calls will not be responded to by police officers in the Windy City.

Ahead of the launch, the city is rolling out two dedicated ambulance teams in August who can respond to calls in 13 neighborhoods that deal with especially high rates of mental health emergencies.

The two teams each include a police officer trained in crisis intervention, a paramedic and a mental health clinician.

One team will be dedicated to calls in the North Side and the other in the South Side of the city, serving Uptown, North Center, Lakeview, Humboldt Park, West and East Garfield Park, West Englewood, West Elsdon, Chicago Lawn, West Lawn, Gage Park, Auburn Gresham and Chatham neighborhoods.

Alex Heaton, Lightfoot's policy advisor for public safety, told the Sun-Times the city hopes the 'public health approach' to mental health calls will ensure residents get the help they need.

'This is a brand new workforce for the city, and it's an exciting opportunity to use a public health approach for people likely to come in contact with the first responder system,' he said.

'Are we reducing calls from an individual? Is it cost-effective? And are we able to connect folks with places that can address their medical concerns?

'Are we able to engage these organizations to make 911 not be the go-to place?'

By having professionals trained in dealing with mental health crises respond to the calls, mental health patients can be given a pathway of support rather than end up in hospitals and jail, Heaton said.

'The only options now are the ER or the lockup,' Heaton said. 'But in this pilot... they'll bring you [to the center], help stabilize you and connect you with follow-up resources.'

The new initiatives are part of Lightfoot's $3.5 million Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement plan unveiled last month.

The plan also includes three new 24/7 drop-off centers across the city for people struggling with mental health issues.

One of the sites is already up and running at the Roseland Community Triage Center, while the other two are set to open on the north and west sides of the city.

The city's new approach to mental health calls comes in the wake of two high-profile police killings of teens who were suffering from mental health episodes.

Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old black teen, was shot and killed by Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014 in the West Side of the city.

Police footage of the incident showed the cop shooting McDonald 16 times as he appeared to walk away from the officer while carrying a knife.

McDonald had learning disabilities and complex mental health diagnoses, having been hospitalized three times for psychiatric issues and arrested 26 times before his death.

Four years on form his killing, Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery over the shooting and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

One year after McDonald's murder, 19-year-old student Quintonio LeGrier was shot and killed by cops the day after Christmas Day 2015.

LeGrier was carrying a bat when officers responded to a call at his father's home.

Chicago Police Department officer Robert Rialmo opened fire shooting LeGrier six times, killing him, and also killing the teen's neighbor who was caught by a stray bullet.

LeGrier was an engineering student at Northern Illinois University and had started showing signs of poor mental health and had been admitted involuntarily to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

The morning he was killed he had called 911 three times in mental distress claiming someone was threatening his life.

One 911 dispatcher hung up the call on the teen.

LeGrier's father then called 911 to report his son trying to break down his door with a baseball bat.

The two cases sparked uproar in Chicago and fueled demands for an overhaul to how mental health calls are dealt with by law enforcement.

The city launched crisis intervention training but calls for police reform grew further last year, following Floyd's murder at the hands of white cop Derek Chauvin.

In 2019, Chicago cops responded to 41,000 mental health calls, according to Supt. David Brown.

As well as meaning people are not getting the help they need, this also diverts police away from tackling crime in the city at a time when shootings are surging and cops are quitting.

Chicago Police pension board figures reveal more cops have left the force so far in 2021 than did in the whole of 2018.

In total, 363 officers retired between January and June compared to 339 in 2018.

The numbers have steadily risen to 475 in 2019 and 560 in 2020 but Ald. Ray Lopez warned the Sun-Times the department is on track 'to have one of the highest retirement numbers in the city's history.'

The latest crime data from Chicago PD shows there have been 1,688 shooting incidents from January through July 11 this year.

This marks an 11 percent increase on the 1,515 recorded in the same period last year.

Criminal sexual assault has also surged 23 percent in the same timeframe while murders dipped 1 percent and overall crime 6 percent.

July 4 marked a particularly bloody weekend for the city with at least 108 people shot, 17 fatally, between July 2 and July 4.

Eleven children, some as young as five and six, were wounded in what was the most violent weekend of the year.

Two ATF agents and a police officer were among the city's shooting victims.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Chicago mental health experts will be dispatched to 911 calls not cops

The city is launching a two-part 'alternative response' pilot program this fall that takes a more public health approach to responding to mental health 911 calls.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
 
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I mean theoretically they should be able to handle most situations, in actuality you'll have a mental health nurse or social worker histrionically screaming at people until they decide to get a gun or knife.
 
Whole lot of posters haven't read the article fully;

Chicago's new 'alternative response' programs will involve dispatching a team that includes a mental health professional and a paramedic to mental health-related calls,
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The two teams each include a police officer trained in crisis intervention, a paramedic and a mental health clinician.
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They're not sending out just a social worker. They're sending out a social worker, a paramedic and police specifically trained for the intervention and the way it is worded that might not even be the full team. This idiocy has to be seen to succeed hence why every call these people respond to is going to get 3+ people specifically trained for these things one of whom is a paramedic literally on hand for if anyone gets injured.

They're then going to brag about how so many of these attempts end well despite the fact that they'll be investing around twice as much resources if not more in each incident.
 
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Morethanabitfoolish said:
Whole lot of posters haven't read the article fully;



They're not sending out just a social worker. They're sending out a social worker, a paramedic and police specifically trained for the intervention and the way it is worded that might not even be the full team. This idiocy has to be seen to succeed hence why every call these people respond to is going to get 3+ people specifically trained for these things one of whom is a paramedic literally on hand for if anyone gets injured and the plan for how to do so is by sending in a social worker with at least two emergency service responders one of whom will have additional training in the necessary area.

They're then going to brag about how so many of these attempts end well despite the fact that they'll be investing around twice as much resources if not more in each incident.
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Dispatching a single cop to domestic calls is still going to end badly in many cases.
 
Some JERK said:
Dispatching a single cop to domestic calls is still going to end badly in many cases.
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Very true. But the fact they specify it's an officer trained in crisis intervention confirms confirms it's not just a generic one nearest the area it's someone with specific training. Along with the paramedic and potentially even more police besides since it's not stated that's the entire team. And the social worker who people will claim will be the one doing the work.
 
Morethanabitfoolish said:
Very true. But the fact they specify it's an officer trained in crisis intervention confirms confirms it's not just a generic one nearest the area it's someone with specific training. Along with the paramedic and potentially even more police besides since it's not stated that's the entire team. And the social worker who people will claim will be the one doing the work.
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Why not just train all of your officers in crisis intervention? That way you won't have to wait for your special officers to be free or get across town while some asshole is busting his wife's teeth out?
 
Some JERK said:
Why not just train all of your officers in crisis intervention? That way you won't have to wait for your special officers to be free or get across town while some asshole is busting his wife's teeth out?
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Because Defund The Police, ACAB and we won't need the police because social workers can do the same job but better (with only the additional need for an armed escort that also happen to have training in that right field, a paramedic on hand to dive on anyone who gets something worse than a scratch, an entire SWAT team on standby, a counsellor for the social worker and no-one else in the aftermath, a dedicated PR team etc.)

I'm pretty salty about this one. They're going to throw money at this without ever admitting the full extent of the costs behind it, it will have above average success because of that but still not be perfect because sometimes you can't negotiate people down and the right shills will be paid to talk about how wonderful it is in contrast to the police.

The optimal outcome though, given it's going to be a full dog and pony show, is that it might lure in those types who love protesting any police activities who will ignore that it's a social worker and end up getting the DAs to actually uphold charges against anyone who does so to these groups while still refusing to press charges when it's the police on their own.
 
Save the Loli said:
Sending therapists and social workers into some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country to deal with people who are 9/10 times on drugs is a quick way to have your therapists walking out the door as fast as your police. Does Lori Lightfoot want them dead that badly?
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Hey, St. Floyd was on drugs. That didn't mean it was okay for Chauvin to restrain him while he died of a self-inflicted overdose waiting for an ambulance manslaughter/murder him.
 
Morethanabitfoolish said:
They're not sending out just a social worker. They're sending out a social worker, a paramedic and police specifically trained for the intervention
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Even better for the criminal scumbags, then. Instead of a pair or even one regular patrol cop trained and ready, they'll be dealing with a political officer that is heavily discouraged from responding to violence. Talk about an easy target to ambush or overpower.

Once the cop is dead, the paramedic is next. An even easier target, perhaps flush with drugs to be used or resold. The social worker might be discarded alive or dead, but if they send female workers out she'll probably get a violent raping first.

So it's a big potential win for whatever jogger gets this treatment, they get to kill a cop, get a free gun and drugs, maybe even a sex slave. I can see how this would be advanced by the criminal loving Democrats.
 
Some JERK said:
Domestic calls are one of the calls that cops fear the most for precisely that reason. You're dealing with extremely agitated people who have already reached their snapping point and in many situations have just lost everything. People like that can be extremely unpredictable and dangerous. A mental health professional isn't a wizard. Someone has to be able to listen to you before you can talk to them. This will end badly.
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That sounds reasonable and all, but have you considered my fee fees and that blue man bad?
 
Wow, who would have thunk that removing the police would backfire? I dont like officers, I really dont but Im in favor of them being trained better and allowed more free will and not throwing the "Im just doing my job" crap.

People will die, innocents especially, the higher ups will probably not care or at most scramble around to find a basic solution to pretend its not there.

Most of these politicians will move away from that city towards, ironically, more republican cities (because its safer, duh) so the cycle can start all over again.

Save the Loli said:
Sending therapists and social workers into some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country to deal with people who are 9/10 times on drugs is a quick way to have your therapists walking out the door as fast as your police. Does Lori Lightfoot want them dead that badly?
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The fact Lightfoot wasnt dragged out of office by her own people as a way to throw her under the bus so they wont get blamed as well really astonish me...
 
JohnDoe said:
Even better for the criminal scumbags, then. Instead of a pair or even one regular patrol cop trained and ready, they'll be dealing with a political officer that is heavily discouraged from responding to violence. Talk about an easy target to ambush or overpower.

Once the cop is dead, the paramedic is next. An even easier target, perhaps flush with drugs to be used or resold. The social worker might be discarded alive or dead, but if they send female workers out she'll probably get a violent raping first.

So it's a big potential win for whatever jogger gets this treatment, they get to kill a cop, get a free gun and drugs, maybe even a sex slave. I can see how this would be advanced by the criminal loving Democrats.
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Yeah, no. The only optics worse for them than the death of the person they are called on would be the death of the social worker. There'll be body cams everywhere and inexplicably all the people who normally refuse to accept a necessary shot will do a complete U-turn and say "it's a tragedy but the social worker cannot be expected to have their life put at risk when trying to talk down someone. Unlike the police. ACAB."

I've a fair amount of contempt for a lot of police but this is going to be little more than a massive PR performance and indeed I would be genuinely unsurprised if a few literal performances are staged.
 
Morethanabitfoolish said:
I've a fair amount of contempt for a lot of police but this is going to be little more than a massive PR performance and indeed I would be genuinely unsurprised if a few literal performances are staged.
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If we were dealing with actual political operators I would give your cynicism more credence, but this is Chicago. The mayor is a fish faced retard and the DA a criminal loving commie, both of whom have drowned what few brain cells they have in the toxic Koolaid of progressive radical Marxism. Even if they could engage in sound logic and pattern recognition, they exist in a delusional fantasy land and would base all their predictions from false principles.

To them, every drug-fueled chimpout is a actually a slanderous lie by racist police to defame an innocent saint of color. They believe their own hype, one hundred and fifty percent. I'm certain that the request for an officer to accompany the 'team' was at insistence of the medic or social workers, and resisted by the government offices.

And when, because this is a certainty, we end up with 3 dead team members and an escaped fugitive you know they'll blame it on the cop. They'll claim the police officer was overcome with racism and killed the medic and social worker, leaving the poor innocent jogger no choice but to defend themselves from the krazed klansman! An all nog jury will refuse to convict, allowing Laquarvious Freeman to return to the streets with a civic settlement from the city so the cycle can repeat.
 
>resources are stretched thin
>decide to allocate more resources per call
Genius, absolute 10/10 plan, Chicago.
 
If you're going to send a social worker to do a cop's job, you're going to have to pay them like a cop.

According to the Internet, a social worker in Chicago starts between 35 and 39K, while a cop starts between 52 and 54K.
 
Hahaha ha. Ah man, I can't wait to see the social worker body count. That's going to be great.

Enjoy your new job position, dipshits!!

Morethanabitfoolish said:
They're not sending out just a social worker. They're sending out a social worker, a paramedic and police specifically trained for the intervention
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Trust me, it's going to be great when Tyrone is knifing his ex-wife in the face and before the cop can pop him, some social worker is going to "try to calm everyone down."

It's going to be really, really funny.
 
I think this should be Chicago's new song:


Does Lightfoot know that getting a high score in murders is only good in games like GTA, not real life?
 
Save the Loli said:
Sending therapists and social workers into some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country to deal with people who are 9/10 times on drugs is a quick way to have your therapists walking out the door as fast as your police. Does Lori Lightfoot want them dead that badly?
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If they're white and/or educated, then yes. She literally wants an entire city of uneducated joggers so she can blame all of the city's issues on racism and get federal dollars.
 
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