Lancaster County needs a system geared to respond proactively to mental health situations
Intelligencer JournalSep 17, 2020
A tragedy happened Sunday afternoon in Lancaster city with the death of
When Muñoz’s family called police, they did so because they needed help. At no point was the help they sought their loved one’s death. When the officer responded, at no point could he have envisioned that his intervention would end the way it did. Now, two families are forever changed and scarred with a trauma that cannot be undone.
On Monday, Lancaster Mayor
It is easy — and lazy — to look at Muñoz’s history and cast him as a someone deserving no sympathy and no pity. A more humane assessment accounts for the fact that no moment exists in a vacuum.
Milzy Carrasco, the city’s director of neighborhood engagement, stated on Facebook that she and city police department social worker
When we talk about the challenges facing our modern law enforcement agencies — presently often focused on race — there is much more to those concerns. Many of us working in human services are fearful that policies put in place to protect society and officer safety can have unintended consequences for those who have mental health challenges, physical disabilities such as hearing impairment or countless other barriers.
And this is not the first time such challenges have been presented to this particular city. My own awakening occurred in 2013, with the story of
Bayne’s interaction started with him urinating outdoors and ended when his life was cut short by a police officer’s bullet because he had a knife. I am no expert in police tactics, but it strikes me that the 2019
I don’t know the answers but believe that questions can lead to better solutions.
In addition, we need to understand that, after these events, the families involved and the officers involved (and their families) have to live with a trauma that deserves counseling and support. Will they get it?
More police officers die by suicide than in the line of duty. It is not an easy job, and it is made more difficult by political grandstanding that dehumanizes the victims of police interactions when we could otherwise be supporting both community members and police officers by taking seriously the needs of health reform in our society.
But, for my own well-being, I need to focus beyond the negatives of tragedy and toward possible solutions. I encourage all of us to dig deeply to think about how we can be part of an improved world.
Calling 911 is an amazing and irreplaceable resource that connects people in the moment of urgency to ambulance, fire and police personnel. What it is not equipped to do is connect people to resources in the days, weeks and years before the emergency.
Such a resource would be immeasurable in its benefit. I know, because we have that resource.
And, yes, to mental health resources.
But our resource is limited in its scope because we are limited in our funding. We have designed, and are ready to build out, a better network — one that stitches together the various databases through the advances in information technologies — so that organizations can know who is connected where.
We have this resource for part of our social services network in Empower Lancaster. We desire to build upon that backbone in a new way that allows our network to go from responsive information and referral to proactive and predictive supports for a wider net of organizations.
But, yes, it would require an upfront financial investment of around
But, to be clear, I need help to build that. The bravery of politicians at the podium, I hope, can become courage come budget time. I know every budget is tight, but we expend
Until then, underfunded but not short of heart, we will continue to do what we can to prevent the next tragedy, be it days, months or years away. And, preferably, may it never come.
I have never been one to rely on wishful thinking. May we find the courage to imagine and act in new ways.
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