Rethinking 911: New California efforts seek to shift mental-health calls away from police
RecordJul 06, 2020
On the afternoon of
Looking for help, Miles' grandmother, his mother and several neighbors called the police, explaining that Miles had serious mental health issues, according to recordings of 911 calls. Officers found him on a tree-lined street in the swimming-pool studded neighborhood he'd grown up in. As he ran toward the police, video footage shows, they shot him first with bean bags, then -- when he didn't slow down -- with handguns.
A little more than a year after Miles died, his mother is lending her voice to AB 2054, which would create pilot programs to remove police from the response to crises involving mental illness and homelessness, as well as natural disasters and domestic violence. The bill seeks
It's one of a series of efforts underway at the local, state and national levels to reimagine who responds to people in crisis, and to take some of that responsibility out of the hands of law enforcement. Many of these efforts have been years in the making, but have been injected with renewed urgency amid recent protests across the country seeking police reform.
Many cities are moving ahead already.
The
This month, the
'It all gets dumped on police'
Many police officers have said for years that they'd prefer that someone else respond to nonviolent crises.
"Unfortunately, with city budgets and the societal ills that we face, it all gets dumped on police," he said. "It seems to have fallen on deaf ears. But it appears now that they're taking it seriously."
Those involved in longstanding efforts to transform
To endure, that would require sustainable funding, possible regional collaborations among smaller counties and committed leadership. Ultimately, it would also include a strengthening of community-based mental health services, so fewer people end up in crisis in the first place.
Steinberg, who carried legislation in 2013 to expand mental health crisis systems statewide, said he'd hoped the state would be further along by now in developing alternatives to police and emergency rooms. His bill had designated about
Still, he said, "It's never too soon, and it's never too late."
'I had a false sense of security'
The 911 tapes offer a glimpse of a family in search of help.
"Miles, my grandson, is having a mental health breakdown," his grandmother can be heard telling the dispatcher, breathlessly, as Miles shouts in the background.
Neighbors called too, all noting Miles had psychiatric issues.
He had started showing signs of psychosis in his late teens. Still, his mother recalls him as a self-taught musician who was so gentle he wouldn't even kill spiders.
Miles also was afraid of the police, but his parents reached out to them intentionally. They wanted officers to know who Miles was, and that their son's Black skin belonged in their white neighborhood,
After being brought in by police the previous summer and placed on a psychiatric hold, he'd spent a few weeks in an inpatient facility, then started on long-acting injectable medications. His mother said he'd stabilized, gotten a job, made friends. The psychosis returned suddenly. She called officers the day before Miles was killed, explaining that he was experiencing psychosis but wasn't violent. Like so many families with nowhere else to turn, her family saw law enforcement as the best path to getting Miles the care he needed.
"I had a false sense of security and thought they were going to be able to treat him," she said.
Three days after Miles' death,
"She came out of the gate ready to fight for her baby," Brooks said.
Last year, Brooks had worked on a bill that became law narrowing the circumstances under which police officers are permitted to use lethal force. Removing police from crisis situations seemed to her an obvious next step.
"We rely on police to be the answer to every single social ill and they shouldn't be," she said. "Their job is supposed to be responding to instances where we as community members are in danger."
Along with organizations such as PolicyLink, the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color and the
To Kamlager, the need for the bill felt both evident – and personal. Over the years, she has carefully reviewed tapes of lethal interactions involving law enforcement and, often, Black people.
"It's really traumatizing to see yourself over and over again being dehumanized," said Kamlager. "They're not me but they either look like me or my husband or my stepson....I'm desperately trying to find policy that's thoughtful that stops treating Black people like we're problems."
When she introduced the bill this past January,
A few months later, the pandemic hit, the economy tanked and the government suddenly faced the prospect of massive cuts--all of which might have made such a bill less likely to pass.
But
"I think communities know what they need and they know how to hold themselves accountable," Kamlager said. "They just don't have the tools."
While the bill has no funding attached to it yet, Kamlager is hopeful the state will include the money in a revised budget come August.
"These are not problems that require a huge amount of research or pilot projects," said Dr.
Insel has been championing a program called Crisis Now as a potential model for counties in
Other advocates, including
Brooks wants to see communities remove police from crisis response entirely. One model for what a state pilot program might look like can be found inside a secondhand RV in the
This past January,
Now, three nights a week, from
Sometimes these crises are easily handled with reassuring words over the phone. "A lot of times folks just want to talk or text," Boykin said. A cup of noodles and a blanket and someone to listen can fix many situations.
On occasions when a crisis requires a trip to the emergency room, a trained volunteer explaining the situation to hospital staff can make a huge difference in how a patient in crisis is treated, Boykin said.
The team relies on word-of-mouth, social media posts and flyers to spread the word about their work. Boykin estimates they've spent less than
This report was made possible by a grant from the
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