Sapp hadn’t realized that if he had made the call, it wouldn’t necessarily have been the police who would have shown up. After the #GeorgeFloyd protests shook the country in 2020, #SanFrancisco started redirecting these sorts of 911 calls to paramedics and trained behavioral #health workers. The city’s new Street Crisis Response Team, which responds to unarmed adults in #crisis from mental illness, substance use, or #homelessness, tries to reduce interactions between the public and the #police, to prevent officers from reacting violently to people in these situations.

Nationwide, #cops fatally shoot hundreds of people experiencing mental health emergencies every year. The city’s crisis responders, by contrast, don’t carry #weapons. And they don’t have law enforcement backgrounds: Each three-person team includes a Fire Department paramedic, a behavioral health specialist, and a peer support counselor to help connect people with social services. In their vans, they store supplies like blankets, socks, snacks, Narcan, tampons, and toothbrushes. They respond to calls within 16 minutes on average, sometimes spending hours with a single person. Since November 2020, the team has fielded thousands of incidents—and, according to the Department of Public Health, which manages the project, not one has led to a death or an arrest, and fewer than 1 percent have led to #violence.

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2022/06/mental-health-san-francisco-street-crisis-response-team-cahoots-police-violence/ #blm #society #security #acab #cahoots #drugs #punischment #usa