I would also like to thank and acknowledge my co-chair for the public hearing council president Shannon Hardin and thank my colleague councilmember Nick Benson for also being here this evening council president would you like to share your opening remarks at this time thank you Mr chair and thank you for calling this important hearing to order startling to your team Lucy and Jeff and to Mark Carter with technology we appreciate you and certainly to our health commissioner the Safety Director's office health Team fire police we appreciate all the administration for their partnership and for being here I'll keep my remarks brief so that we can move into the substance of tonight's meeting the work that we'll discuss this evening is a future of Public Safety the public is more is asking for more flexible teams with different skills and capabilities I believe that we as public servants have a have to answer that call again we want to thank the representatives that are here this evening as well as the workers who are on the phones and on our streets daily as a part of these response units my focus tonight and during the budget process will be squarely on the future of these efforts with important questions like how do we allocate adequate resources how do we design org charts and systems of accountability so that Council and the public knows how well these efforts are working and what new areas can we venture into to improve Public Safety in Columbus I also apologize that I will be departing before the end of the hearing but look forward to the follow-up there are so many Community Advocates as well that I know that we'll hear from but I think that their engagement their feedback their prodding and pushing is making us better and thus I'm grateful for them as well so thank you Mr chair I'll turn it back over to you thank you very much council president councilmember Benson do you have anything you'd like to add in this one all right as a reminder this hearing is currently live on YouTube and Facebook and is also live and being recorded for rebroadcast on CTV Columbus's government television channel 3 the rebroadcast schedule is also available at www.columbus.gov before we begin I want to welcome and thank each of you each of our presenters this evening Dan chian Gardella the deputy director of the Department of Public Safety Ken Koontz the administrator division of Support Services Department of Public Safety Dr mashika Roberts the health commissioner for the city of Columbus Public Health Marion Stuckey section chief neighborhood Social Services Columbus Public Health the city of Columbus has been hard at work committed to providing the best and most forward-thinking alternative emergency response services to all residents and visitors of Columbus our residents face unique emergency situations daily that may not always deem a response from Columbus Police or other law enforcement services this evening we will be disc we will be discussing four units implemented by the city of Columbus to address these unique needs of our residents the right Response Unit mobile crisis response rapid response emergency addiction crisis team specialized program assessing resource connectivity and those are acronyms which we'll hear plenty of tonight this evening we will hear from the Departments of Public Safety and public health as they provide an overview of the alternative response infrastructure successes and updates without further Ado I will turn the floor over to our team of presenters and I think Dan G you're up first thank you very much thank you president Harden chair rimi members of council again thank you for allowing us to update you this evening and the community on the right Response Unit and alternative response model which of course is part of uh what we're attempting to do and respond to the community and demands to lessen the number of police officers that have to respond to some of our mental health and addiction issues many of us here this evening have been part of a series of updates on the right Response Unit dating back to Mayor genthers launching the pilot program in May in 2021 also many of us attend additional hearings and public addresses over the past year on the right response model notably in January 2022 and as recently as September 12th when mayor Ginther updated our community on the city's progress on this very important initiative I'm pleased to have with me this evening some of the people who have helped in organizing and implementing the right Response Unit such as Ken Koontz Support Services administrator as well as Captain Matt Parrish from the division of fire Lieutenant Charles waldega and Captain Matt Parrish from division of police also here our partners for Columbus public health health commissioner Dr mashika Roberts and Marion Stuckey and with that I will uh allowed Dr Roberts to make some opening comments before we go through the rest of our program thank you well good evening and be so much for having for having us this evening violence is a public health issue and as a result of that Columbus Public Health is very proud to really really honored to be working on this important issue with many of our city Partners you heard Dan G mentioned some of which are here tonight others that we have been working with on this issue include reckon parks and the department of neighborhoods along with Columbus fire Columbus Police and the Department of Public Safety but we have to work together to address this issue in our community and we realize that every single day this evening we're going to talk to you about some of the alternative responses that we have been working on here in our community to really meet our residents where they are and provide them the services that they need when they need them I am so proud of my team at Columbus Public Health but specifically that the division of neighborhood Social Services led by my colleague Marion Stuckey they are also passionate about this work they invest their time their energy and really their hearts into this work and you're going to hear about some of that this evening so again we um feel very honored to work along our city Partners on this very important issue for all of our residents here in Columbus so back to you Dan uh thank you so following mayor ganther announcing the pilot program on May 14 2021 represents from Public Safety including police fire and support services and Columbus Public Health work together to identify personnel and training procedures for what would be known as the right Response Unit the city's answer to connect individuals in crisis to Alternative response for mental health and addiction calls instead of immediately dispatching officers for events that may not require a police response as we have seen connecting individuals with the right resources reduces the Reliance on traditional police and Ems for some crisis response situations this initial Step at the right response was significant expansion of a program that Public Safety launched with the help of Nationwide Children's Hospital in April of 2021 to triage juvenile mental health calls for service the right Response Unit practice with mock calls during the first week of June 2021 to adjust procedures and then began taking live calls at noon on June 7 2021 as you will hear data to date indicates that nearly a third of the calls triaged by the right Response Unit do not require immediate police response in addition mental health and substance abuse calls that are diverted to the right Response Unit oftentimes receive follow-up call or visit from one of two divisions in the 102 division of fire programs either the rapid response emergency addiction and crisis team otherwise known as react which that has a fire paramedic as well as a CIT trained police officer and a social worker or the special program assessing resource connectivity otherwise known as spark which also pairs a fire paramedic and a social workers calls that still may require police are likely to receive a visit from the mobile crisis response team which also pairs a police officer and a Health Department's social workers or a crisis intervention trained officer initially the unit operated money through Friday noon to four when we first started earlier this year the hours were extended so that calls were triaged from 8 am until 4 pm and as of this week the hours are now extended until midnight Monday through Friday the rru consists of a 911 dispatcher from the division of support services and social workers from the Columbus Health Department is is Marion joined us yet idols yes oh great uh so with that uh Marion Stuckey Columbus Public Health neighborhood Social Work section chief will go through some of the our most recent stats that we have on what has been triaged through the reu unit Marion thank you and good evening everyone again it's our honor and privilege to be a part of this initiative and I'll share some stats about how things have been going so far here you could see this is a little description of how the the program works so a caller contacts 9-1-1 and they either are self-directed or able to choose option three on the non-emergency line to get back to the rru the dispatcher determines if the situation involves a potential Mental Health crisis or a substance use disorder crisis from there the call takers obtain residents permission to connect with the team the call is transferred to an rru clinician and at that point the clinician is able to do a thorough in-depth assessment and attempt to stabilize and de-esco de-escalate the situation and so from there if needed clinicians work with 9-1-1 dispatchers and cfd paramedics to dispatch to the proper um the proper Personnel for the scene and so essentially I'd like to really emphasize that this allows us to spend as much time as is needed with that caller and to really triage and assess and use the time that it takes to get to the scene to de-escalate so it's really been quite powerful to have just however long it takes there's been cause that have lasted for 45 minutes to an hour to really understand what's happening with that caller and to really build rapport which is difficult on the phone but it's something that we've been able to really do over the past several months um so the success of the right Response Unit includes from June of 2021 through September there's been night 1968 events that were triaged so just uh just under 2000 events that were triaged and from me I'll just share some of the highlights from this slide approximately 30 of the events so that's about 544 calls for service did not require any police response the calls are immediately triaged and this includes again there the calls are going right directly to a mental health a licensed mental health clinician oftentimes with six plus years of mental health experience and they're able to get free and immediate Mental Health Service right there from a social worker essentially there was no use of force situations or events involved with the rru and there's been a number of referrals that have resulted 473 referrals were connected with local Mental Health Providers and then 30 were referred to the VA so you can see there has been there's been various results that have happened and connections and referrals from the calls in terms of our success continued so we have 59 referrals that have come to Columbus Public Health neighborhood Social Work program and again just emphasizing the Continuum of Care that we have right within cph to be able to work with the caller and then help to just work with them over the course of several months or weeks whatever is needed 193 referrals went to the spark program 24 went to Adult Protective Services de-escalation took place with approximately 50 percent or 540 of the calls and the police responses involving rru so again just really utilizing every moment every second that we have to de-escalate and to again build rapport with that caller and understand their needs 194 events required a police response because sometimes we're not able to make contact with the caller or they do sometimes refuse assistance and then finally I'll just highlight how the rru has had a positive influence on the Dispatch Center and employees there just by being able to de-escalate and just debrief after calls so again we're talking about crisis calls and extremely difficult emotionally difficult calls so to be able to create infrastructure to support staff no matter what department they work in is really important and sustainability in this work requires secondary traumatic stress interventions that are immediate and on the spot and so you'll see here in this slide this emphasizes all the different spaces within Columbus that we've been able to triage calls and provide our Ru services and with that I'll turn it back over to Dan uh thank you Marion and thank you Marion so now I'll talk a little bit about some of the information with respect to some of those actual alternative response units other than the the direct one obviously Marion talked about the calls come into the rru the triaging by social workers but we also have what we call our secondary response as well and of course our mobile crisis response which is a police specialized units mobile crisis response teams are available usually 10 a.m to midnight Monday through Sunday pretty much every day of the year that we have officers and social workers available the mobile crisis teams pair a CIT trained officer with a a Columbus Public Health social worker all of our office or many of our officers are CIT trained that focus on de-escalation situation with individuals experience a mental health crisis over two-thirds of our Patrol officers have received Cit training including every new officer that we hire and place on the street MCR teams as I said consist of that CIT officer and a clinician specializing in mental health from the Columbus Health Department the calls for service in which an MCR unit responds rarely result in any use of force arrest and no officers engage with MCR units have ever used deadly force following the initial interaction with MCR these units can refer people to our secondary response they can respond to our spark team for follow-up care as well the Columbus police officers that are assigned um to these units not only receive CIT training but approximately over the last two years about 74 percent of all of our mental health calls for service received a response from either a CIT trained officer or an MCR officer we receive about 23 000 calls annually for mental health disturbance we that that has actually been pretty consistent is stayed back to 2019 we looked at our stats for the last few years they actually haven't increased that much we were curious to see perhaps what what had happened post pandemic our calls from 2019 to 20 20 20 20 were mostly flat again about 21 000 calls and in 2021 our calls are up about four a little over four percent about 4.4 percent about a thousand calls annually which amounts to about three or four extra calls a day so probably I think we we were thinking those calls would be a little bit higher but the volume ticked up as I said only a little over four percent over the past two years also 20 21 and 22 an average of 15 percent of our mental health calls for service have involved an MCR officer response and so far this year approximately one-third of our mental health related calls for service have resulted in a transport to a local hospital or mental health related facility we also talked about the the react team which basically focuses on the addiction crisis the react teams have been around for several years now they also do follow up on all of our non-fatal overdoses the react teams offer is substance abuse assistance they link individuals for treatments provide transportation if necessary the aid through the recovery process and offer resources to help stabilize households in Partnership also with addiction centers they connect overdose patients with same-day access to treatment they also conduct Community trainings on the use of Narcan this program is designed to provide harm reduction and prevention of Overdose deaths and help link individuals with the appropriate substance abuse disorder treatment programs uh also the the spark unit which we talked about earlier also in partnership with the central Ohio area Office on Aging identifies older adults and people that might have disabilities or frequently contact 9-1-1 so this is more the EMS side but again we can pick up and help with other issues that might be related to substance abuse as well over 16 000 individuals referred to the spark program in 2021 the division of fire estimates that this potentially reduces EMS calls for service anywhere from ten thousand to fifteen thousand annually and again this is a this is a program that is available on an ad needs basis to all people in Franklin County 988 which is uh something that's just come online I know that I think Sue villio is here tonight I'm not gonna I'm sure she can talk way more uh tonight if she would like to about uh the uh integration of that and how that has come online but basically this is the introduction of the national mental health and substance abuse crisis hotline which began in July of 2022. other items being addressed as we move forward obviously our division of Support Services we continue to hire 911 call takers and dispatchers for use in the the right Response Unit right now we have at least two and two dispatchers assigned to that room there are multiple social workers in the in the rru when we first started we had one supervisor one social worker one dispatcher now one dispatcher usually will work with up to three social workers again with those new hours 8 30 to midnight Monday through Friday we also obviously Staffing for Public Safety to ensure Personnel are available for some of these alternative response units the mayor and and Council in 2022 provide us with 170 police officers uh multiple classes of fire fire so obviously we're continuing to hire and obviously look to add teams to that as we go forward Vehicles as well is something we continue to look at vehicles for both our spark react and MCR teams the current model again we've talked a little bit about this already the Staffing Support Services two dispatchers Columbus Public Health obviously with social workers and six full-time social uh social workers in that rru as well as part-time uh the spark units we have two fire paramedics two social workers with along with our partner agencies again our react teams there are three of those with fire cap the lieutenants six uh firefighter paramedics for CIT trained police officers and again our MCR units of which there are five five officers a sergeant a social worker and one paramedic assigned to those units as well I'd like now also to uh give a little shout out to some of our success stories there are a number of the social media and news articles that have been done over the past year um so we would like to play some of these it'll really give you a much more in depth of how we run the rru and the the help of some of these alternative teams that we have hold on 9-1-1 what is your emergency so did you call in to the police today I was just wondering how I could support you when individuals have mental health concerns it's you know one of the scariest times in your life when I first started in this business many years ago our mental health calls were minimal does she have any um weapons in her room anything sharp that she could harm herself with and now my guess would be mental health calls could possibly be one in four um hi this is Alberta from the right Response Unit Columbus Police how are you doing today it's changing the ways that we've done things for years and years we've helped a lot of people my name is Alberta Muhammad I am currently a community crisis clinician with the city of Columbus I work for Columbus Public Health but I am a social worker that's embedded here at 9-1-1 traditionally 9-1-1 was designed to respond to house fires and heart attacks calls that need an urgent emergent response you know time is of the essence many of these runs there's not a police Nexus but a lot of times there was just no one else to send in the moment so we just dispatched officers anyway and we would kind of expect them to do the best they could in the situation the right Response Unit is a triage pod within the call center or the radio room that will receive a call that is has a Nexus to mental health basically took a trained clinician put them back with our call takers who can now take a different look at that Ron triage it decide whether or not they feel it's suitable to send police fire or maybe a different resource we're changing the way we're responding to them we're not focusing on how fast we get it done we're really looking at getting the right response and the right resource in the right amount of time let's be thinking three or four steps ahead of this person who's in crisis on what the best Avenue would be for them to get the help or the systems that they need well just to let you know um we have a 34cm pet swinger all right you can go ahead and put me on that too okay so you do have a mental health provider or you do not okay okay and you are taking your medicine um so maybe the plan we can make we started in June and we surveyed I believe it was three months worth of data and the outcomes were really amazing in the sense that coals that traditionally would have gotten a public safety response 50 of the time we were able to manage that call by referring them to a outside partner we reduced significantly reduce the number of calls where we did have to respond where police were included we have stopped people or interrupted them and trying to harm themselves we've gotten people to Service as they needed we've helped officers have to go not go out on things that they couldn't really do too much with and got people where they needed to go sometimes the police have to come and that's okay and sometimes we will be on the phone and we will just help de-escalate individuals to kind of be at a more calm state if police or fire does have to come like how is she with police officers the collaborative effort effort has been absolutely phenomenal we broke down some of those silos to say we're all going to be involved how can we do it the best way I think we're getting different resources there that might be more effective in the moment but also benefits Community another aspect because now these First Responders are free for other calls for service our goal is to make sure that you have enough resources that you're able to you know navigate your next Mental Health Challenge for yourself or your family number there's a lot of good work that goes on in Columbus and we're here to kind of spread the word and give that information to people I'm humbled that I can serve I'm humbled that I've been able to help people and I'm just I I'm so glad like to be here like it's I couldn't think of anything else I'd rather do so Alberta she's one of our real stars she was one I think our first social worker that we had and is just uh really done it done an excellent job for us uh if we can get to the the next one thank you every crisis is different for everybody for some people in the moment it may not seem like a crisis for others it is at 10 and they need help immediately the right Response Unit we are a group of clinicians um so we're either licensed social workers with the state of Ohio or licensed clinical counselors we are embedded here at the radio room with the 911 dispatch Center and help manage mental health calls that come in sometimes they just need resources Sometimes some people just need help de-escalating like they just don't know how to get their body and their mind to calm down First Responders have their hands full Our Community Partners have their hands full like everyone is just working extra hard even here like dispatchers everyone's working just extra hard over time to support the community of Columbus so we're just happy that we can be a part of that we always want to be an heir that's listening we want to be supportive and we want to help kind to figure out that outcome that makes sense providing the city with that autonomy I think it's just huge I think it makes them feel empowered again there is such a stigma to mental health the internet not everything on the internet is true but if our anxiety gets to the point where it's starting to control our life it causes depression people who suffer from mental health issues are often marginalized in society and quite honestly they're they're they are often victimized bottle donate that level of anger is not healthy what are the voices saying this is our truth and you're all going to accept it okay got me so this is the Theory of Everything yes we have to get you to the hospital people don't realize here in the city how many resources they have here I'm Sergeant Matt Harris I'm with the mobile crisis response unit 720 to zone three uh where's MCR needed we've been operational for over three years now we respond to Mental Health crisis situations or psychiatric emergencies all day long for 10 hours a day during our shift and we do that city-wide we'll go anywhere that we need to to address these type of issues you started tracking numbers in 2017 and each year since then that number of mental health related calls for service has increased by thousands and that trend is continuing through 2021 the caller believes that this person might be having some sort of a mental breakdown the person might need some help it's like there's a bunch of people pointing him out and he looks pretty agitated hey man what's going on do you also have a mental health diagnosis yeah what do you think uh what do you think is going on there's a fair percentage of calls that uh that don't require a traditional police response female 5-1 for Riverside we transport approximately 1200 people to area hospitals or Mental Health crisis centers each year that we've been doing this so far we've not had any significant use of force incidents involved involving those transports so to me that's a great success I want to make sure that you're okay the goal is always to uh make a connection with somebody and the way that we do that is we approach in a a non-offensive non-aggressive way um person to person right human to human uh you know hey help me to understand what's happening how can I help you yeah we just come up we want to make sure everything's safe and we just want to make sure we lay eyes on you right now there's myself as the unit sergeant and five officers and we currently pair with two mental health clinicians the clinicians are are fantastic because uh if we respond to a situation where maybe an individual's had a bad experience with the police or they have some we may trigger some fear uh just with the uniform we have a person who's not a police officer there with us that that can talk to that individual so we can uh try to figure out the best solution from both a law enforcement and a mental health perspective at the same time I think you know in your heart that we would did not come up trying to trick you we seen what what was going on with you you definitely look a lot better and a lot less anxious today than you did when we seen you last time but I can still see yes I can see it going up real quick other police officers are really good at getting drugs off the street getting guns off the street dealing with you know traffic type scenarios for me personally this type of work resonates with me and I just feel like it's it's it's what I was meant to be doing within the policing profession so we have one more videos and you can see from these These are the real heroes and some of them are here tonight that are doing this tremendous work so we can queue up that last one thank you it's a lot of knocking on doors and not really knowing what what what's on the other side coming to policing uh there's a lot of seeing where you fit and seeing where you can do the most good my name is Rachel this is Brian we're with the Columbus fire react team when I started with CPD this job didn't exist and I'm telling you now it's my dream job you just gotta say I can go today I can I can make this commitment I'm office of Rachel Thomas I've been with the Columbus Division of police for nine years and I'm a member of the react team that ended up being an overdose react is the rapid response emergency addiction crisis team what we do is we get referrals and respond out following a non-fatal overdose to assist the person who has experienced the overdose in getting into treatment if they are ready and to provide harm reduction like Narcan or naloxone and Fentanyl test strips opiates are being put into just about everything now this is a way for them to tell whether or not we what they are choosing to consume may have fentanyl in it straight out of college I was a social worker I worked for a non-profit called the Buckeye Ranch which was a great experience and kind of got looking around what what's next what what do I want to do and what what's my skill set one of the special Duty Officers at the ranch said Rachel you've really got to go do a ride-along you've got to experience what this is and how it could you can make it yours and I did not believe him until he did the ride along and the things that I was seeing it defied kind of what I expected I thought from you know television and my experiences as a caseworker that I knew what police work was he was stopping to talk to people to check on people and this is third shift so middle of the night and we're in the Linden area and he was he was doing all the things that I didn't really know police officers did so it gave me an opportunity to see wow I like that that fits with my values that fits with how I want to interact with the community and what I want my job to be I applied at the next window for applications and went through all the steps and finally got on in 2013. the epidemic hasn't flowed at all and when things went from heroin use to fentanyl the the deaths really took off so the the problem it's not going away if anything it may be getting worse he'll Place plunge so peel it out of there place it up the nostril plunge the plunger up it's that simple I have had people in my family that have needed to get treatment and have have had to you know kind of walk this path when you see that up close firsthand with somebody that you've known it it makes you realize how difficult this whole thing is and nobody's choosing to to use and and to stay in a life that is obviously um not good for them or or anybody we treat everybody like somebody out of our own family or our own friends how how would we deal with this you got to take care of you just as much as everybody else the best days are the days we get to take somebody into treatment if you can take the take take and treat the substance use disorder all of the things that you know the low-level crimes the uh the the overdoses the calls for service go away when that person is functioning better which is to say nothing of the wonderful impact on their family on you know their neighbors the community at large the rewarding thing is knowing that we have so many people that are you know living healthy lives their families are making steps to be you know more functional more happy it's it's so rewarding and it's so so neat to to be able to regularly see people on the path to succeeding and doing better for themselves even if we're just a small part again thank you I don't know that we could we can sit here and talk about statistics and numbers the I think the videos really explains in the good work that is going on out there um just to kind of emphasize some of the intangibles that Marion had mentioned earlier um first of all we ask individuals no no one's being forced to you know have their call transferred to the rru our call takers are trained to you know recognize those calls see if they are appropriate for something that might go to the ru where the social workers are and then those individuals are asked if that's uh if they would like to have that type of help I think the other thing uh that Marion talked about was they get immediate help you know in the past you call 9-1-1 and you're looking for this type of help you're waiting you know for either an officer or maybe some cases one of the other response units to come out or a CIT trained officer now you have the opportunity to get immediate help with the a licensed trained social worker and you did here Marion and some of the commentators talk about some of these calls can go on for a while that de-escalation process which also helps us because in the event that police still has to show up there's a very good chance a high percentage of these calls there's de-escalation that's going on the social worker is talking to the individual while police is enroute helping to help alleviate that situation in providing information to that officer when they get there so there are a lot of sort of in what we call intangible benefits that we're seeing as well not to mention that we estimate just in the you know the roughly 2 000 calls we've done we've probably free up about 900 hours of police officer time as well so um just those things that perhaps aren't obvious you don't look at them in terms of dollars and cents but they are great intangels for our community and also benefiting in many ways our our response model as well so that that's the information we have to present tonight uh we'd be happy our team is here to to attempt to answer any questions that you might have thank you very much thank you very much uh deputy director uh council president Harden I want to give you the opportunity to ask questions that you may have thank you Mr chair and thank you to the team for presenting I I do agree also that seeing Sergeant Harris and those out folks out there seeing the call take over to technicals does put a face to it but also shows um that this is hard work it's hard to work but it's also heart work um and um and we're grateful I'm also grateful that we kind of we made this transition kind of pretty quickly some of this stuff started in 2017 but a lot of it has scaled up pretty quickly since last year and for that I'm also grateful one of the things that you know I I focus on now as we we look to a program that obviously is showing success obviously it has proven benefits to providing the appropriate care to some of our residents but also on the other side of Public Safety to your point freeing up 900 hours so that other officers could could focus on other types of crime is is more of a structure question um or structure questions scalability questions and future offerings and so one of the questions that I asked last hearing was around um do we know how much money we are spending cross department on this effort so far sorry I'm having a hard time getting my microphone uh president Harden uh chair rimi members of council So within Public Safety alone and we talked a little bit about this I think when we had our budget hearing um uh or very early this year maybe late last year uh probably right now about three million dollars when you look at the teams that we currently have in place now that would be within Public Safety uh you probably have at least uh I'm guessing probably another million dollars within Public Health due to the number of social workers and supervisors they have hired as well so you know you're somewhere probably in that four to five million dollar range right now when we look at how how we have things staffed up when we um as we move into budget season I will ask this question again and I would like to see it cross a departmental because I think it gives Council a better perspective of the total uh resources that are being presented but it also starts to speak to a larger opportunity around structure and or making sure that there is Clarity in terms of how this program where where it is housed from a cross-departmental standpoint but also how we can as an oversight body um a legislative body support its growth because I think that they're a strong support of of this moving forward in real ways another question that I have is around um uh when when the when when are we able to offer the different Services I know that in terms of thinking again my mind is thinking about structure scale where do we go from from here um knowing that you know MCR is available at certain hours um how do is there a way that we can talk about that in more specificity and then talk about the goals for where we would like to get to almost as we so much of this is kind of right at the cusp of our budget conversations um and so I'm kind of using this as a teaser and a help for how I will engage with you guys in the next month or so yes president Harden chairman members of council you're absolutely right uh president Harden obviously uh the mayor is probably you know uh soon to be I think by code November 15th anyway uh has to submit that budget I'm sure there'll be some items in there that will address some of these alternative response I mean right now we are first of all let me say that Council and the mayor the administration have been great uh in providing funds for these programs uh and for the the ru so we're very grateful for that right now we are very focused on building up our our successes and expanding the ru in terms of calls we have an excellent collaborative relationship with Columbus Public Health uh they obviously we're so happy to be able to you know extend those hours basically double the time that we're going to be able to triage those calls I know that's something that Columbus Health's been working on and in hiring social workers to staff that so we're really excited about that so we are excited to see what our numbers are going to look like I think just in the past three months over the summer we tweaked up our um our our call line a little bit and we were able to increase our call volume by 30 percent and some of that of course was that we increased the hours this past year and then of course we um we made a bigger emphasis on pushing calls into that right Response Unit so now that we're doubling our our time uh the Columbus Health with social workers are going to 16 hours I think we're really anxious to see here in the last quarter of you know what what is that going to look like in terms of of the number of touches they get enable the number of services they're you know people they're able to help so we're really excited about uh the the numbers and and what that will look like and that will also help us begin to look at how do we continue to build this out where do we go from here what are our next steps and those discussions are happening I mean we we meet very regularly with Columbus Public Health and their representatives uh assistant commissioner Anita Clark and her staff and Marion and so those discussions have been going on they will continue to go on as to where are we you know where are we headed from here was our call volumes look like what is the data telling us what problems are we trying to solve thank you and and last question and then kind of more of a statement um I know that my friend Stephen David is going to uh ask questions and and has asked questions of us around the future of this work and as in how we feel about a purely non-police response uh uh Team um and it is something that I I am very interested in I support but I also what I I tell my friends that that are are advocating and is that we're trying I'm trying to also create the space for you guys to grow a program and get the structure right um and not put the cart before the horse but are there any are there any models out there of non-police response that we could look to um towards the future and I know that that uh sorry Captain Parrish has done a lot of work in the space and knows a lot of different uh models around the country but even I was watching the news the other day and Dayton has a non-police response type team are there other models that we're looking out there that could give us um a guide map to how we could continue to offer more offerings to an already great program with many offerings president Harden chair rimi members of council the short answer is yes and we are looking at those again uh working with Columbus Public Health I think it's it's crucial the the role that they have to play with us and the partnership on that and you know candidly uh some of our secondary response models don't have an officer with them right now yeah um so you know our spark team and so forth uh so yes I think there's a role there those are programs that are being talked about obviously we're not ready to announce anything tonight but I think you can see that that is certainly a place where a lot of or you know a lot of this work is headed for sure certainly and then just my my last statement is that um when we have these hearings and we we bring the administration sorry and I apologize I do have to run but um this is so important to us though but as we have these conversations and we bring folks to bring the administration in I think it also it often surprises the community Advocates of the good work that is being done and so one of the things that I think is an opportunity for us and something that that uh Council will will advance and I sent uh information to the mayor's office this week is on a community advisory committee so that we can have more regular back and forth between The Advocates who are want us to go in a certain direction and the administration who is already going in that direction in a lot of ways but have that two-way back and forth in a community so that we can create more ambassadors for a program that is growing and doing well uh and so that's something that I would just like to work with the administration on uh in the next month so yes thank you president Harden again and thank you for allowing us to be here tonight and have this discussion I do I know I answered several those questions I would like to offer Dr Roberts if she's still behind me an opportunity to address any of those things as those questions you might have as well there we go thank you um [Music] Cher roomie just to Echo some of the things that Dan mentioned already we are working to hire it is challenging as you all know to hire in this climate but we are continuing to work hard and marrying her team or interviewing on a regular basis I do just want to make a comment to your community advisory committee that is something that we have looked at and we have talked to other cities of similar size of how they've handled that and so that's something on our radar at public health of how we can work together with our residents to help control violence and mental health issues in our community appreciate it thank you thank you very much council president uh councilman uh thank you councilmember Roomie for your leadership and for hosting this um my question is around the right response units I guess is probably more anecdotal or if it is uh quantitative that'd be great as well you know getting those responses how helpful is that to our officers and happy to hear from them to have the context when they're going into a situation how important is that just as much as making sure that we have the right response show up well I'm sure uh the it's very much appreciated in that the more information we can provide our officers as they arrive on a scene about a uh an issue as extremely beneficial to them and I I don't know if Sergeant Harris has access to a a microphone but I'm sure he could um probably give much more firsthand account of that but I'm sure it's extremely beneficial Sergeant you have anything you want to add to that yes thanks for the question council member I would say that it's extremely beneficial what happens is when we obtain all that information from the right Response Unit it gives us a heads up but we know what we're walking into um it decreases the amount of questions that we have to ask when we get on scene potentially shortening the amount of time so we can move on to the next uh crisis call but it's certainly beneficial and in multiple ways and then the other thing and I know it was mentioned earlier is that when you have somebody who is um really agitated on the line with a mental health professional they're continuously working to get that person just down a few notches and maybe a little more calm that way when we arrive it's easier for us to do our job the other thing that they're really really good at is explaining to them look they say you know the police are coming however this is a special team these are police officers who who do crisis work every day and they sort of are able to reduce that potential fear or anxiety of having law enforcement show up so they do tremendous work in assisting us and by the time we get on the scene it's uh it's usually pretty easy to to we already know what's happening and how we're going to work to resolve the situation yeah thank thank you for that because I just want to make sure folks understand that that context is everything you know our officers get called to so many situations they don't know what they're walking into and that's where we get a lot of you know issues that you know quite frankly we don't know what the response could be so thank you for adding that Clarity the other question and maybe it's more common than a question um deputy director because I think you did answer it uh is around the sustainability piece and I know that what we're spending now and those figures that you gave but the question I think about as we go into budget season what does this look like to sustain it on its own right I know that our officers are already stretched our firefighters in particular I know I've spoken firsthand to them they're already stretched as well so programs like this are amazing but we're utilizing our current Personnel so has there been thought to process to how do we replace and supplant some of those officers that have now been taken say off a regular Duty or some of our firefighters have been taken off a regular duty to be on the react team and some of those other special teams yes uh councilmember Bankston chair rimi so the administration the mayor council have been very gracious in the the this past budget year we had had three classes of both police officer and firefighters some of the highest numbers that we have run through our academies uh in in decades as I said the the goal was 170 police officers uh I believe uh I want to say about 150 firefighters so obviously the mayor will have some more to say about that here in the coming days in terms of what those class and strengths look like for 2023 but the there has not been a question of resources I think as I said Council and the mayor have provided us with the funds to do the you know to to backfill these positions we also know and Dr Roberts alluded to it you know the economy has really changed for us so it's a challenge for everyone private sector public sector in terms of hiring really all positions so um you know obviously we're not getting the huge number of applicants at times that we used to get for uh positions across the board but we are continuing to hire We are continuing we have classes currently right now police officer and firefighters so and we're going to need to continue to do that as you say if we're going to continue to build these programs out so it's challenging but you're seeing the work that these individuals are doing and you have some very committed people behind me and others that are in this room today and I think many of us are committed to seeing this through thank you and no more questions uh chair but I just want to make sure I point out something and Dr Roberts are marrying it if you want to chime in it was interesting to me to see that map where the responses were because yet again it's that upside down T that we see in our community and so we're doing all the things we can to invest in right response doing everything that we can to make sure that our officers get the resources they need but we're not going to police our way out of this we have some deep rooted uh systemic uh societal issues that we have to invest in as a community and so I just want to commend uh Department uh of safety and public health for partnering up on this because this is one way that we can tackle that and just want to commend Dr Roberts and her team for really taking the mantle on and looking at uh violence as a Public Health crisis because we do know that it stems from other societal issues in the upside down T that we continue to see in so many areas right vacant abandoned housing violent crime time when you look at education infant mortality it's all in that same geography so thank you all for being I think Innovative uh being open and responsive to this and looking forward to supporting this endeavor in the future thank you very much council member Bankston um I yeah I kind of want to dive in a little bit about goals for 23 and certainly you know I'm I'm excited to see the expansion of right response you know Monday through Friday however would it be safe to say that the goal would be that this is a seven day a week operation and not just a Monday through Friday ultimately I'm going to ask that to Dr Roberts sorry having some trouble with the mic sure Remy um thanks for that question and I think obviously the goal for all of us is to be able to provide our wonderful city services 24 7. um so that is our ultimate goal how long it will take us to get there really depends on Staffing as well as additional resources so that is the in-game obviously but we're not quite there yet so in knowing that obviously we you know being chair of administration I know these struggles are not you know just specific to your mission and certainly we we see it just as much in refuse and utilities etc etc um but are there innovative ways that we're attempting to address these hiring you know difficulties and are there ways that we as Council can help support those goals whether it be you know signing bonuses Etc to help to achieve you know our ultimate mission yeah I mean that's a heavy question um I I think that um the workforce now has very different expectations than they had in 2019 and as a government agency trying to hire and employ and maintain um employees with 2019 practices can be challenging and I know I've had discussions with the administration about that you know I can speak for my department a lot of our work cannot be done remotely and many people now that's what they want they want that type of flexibility but Health Care cannot be done remotely nor can safety and so I think we as city government need to just really think outside the box of what we can do to entice individuals to come work for us knowing that they're just certain things that we can't offer in 2022 and beyond that many have learned to expect as a result of this pandemic what um and this probably goes back to dng but this is something I asked for in a previous hearing what efforts have been made to educate the community on these resources and where can residents go to get more information because you know as I do a search online I don't see any real opportunities and I'm sure if I can't find it that most people can't cherimi members of council certainly these hearings help some of those videos that we've showed tonight are a couple years old so they've been out there on social media so they are available out there we've also had our several of our own staffs help produce many of these videos and this these aren't are aren't all the ones that we've we have put out there so there is there's uh there's actually quite a bit of information we've had a lot of interest from media both print media and also television in our right Response Unit so uh you know I don't think there's been a more than three or four weeks to go by we don't get some type of inquiry either from local media or national media as to what we're doing and and how it's going and what we're going to move forward with so there's there's a lot out there um I I'm not going to suggest there probably isn't some more things that we couldn't do but we are as I said real we're just so focused right now on increasing our hours that a lot of our that's gotten a lot of our attention but uh but there are a lot of things out there on it thank you I appreciate it I am going to make this request again could you put up slide one for me on this presentation this this should be a landing page that our residents can go to online to find out more information so if they want to click on react they can it'll drive through to further information right response dive through you know go to the next you know page doesn't have to be robust but basically this presentation so that people in our community and when I'm out speaking and my colleagues are out speaking can say you need to go to columbus.gov slash alternate ACR or you know whatever the the landing page needs to be but that needs to be done and I would hope that would be done here relatively soon um has there been any collaboration with surrounding municipalities who we often serve or receive services from um obviously you know there's issue you know we we share information all the time so I I kind of want to understand if we're working with other municipalities in this effort um and to my knowledge I mean we are the sort of the big kid on the Block when it comes to this um I might refer to a couple of my colleagues as to what they're hearing with some of the Suburban communities are doing I don't know that any of them are as far ahead as we are but I'll throw it at back to uh perhaps uh Cancun's Support Services who helps with the ru or some of my partners in police and fire certainly uh Sergeant Harris or Captain Parrish with the surrounding Community what might what they might be doing cannot you want to start if you're aware um yes there's been some talks uh with other communication centers uh throughout Franklin County we have been meeting someone I know Sue villalio may have more to uh talk about in that realm we are certainly working very close with uh Franklin County but we as you said director we are the leader in the area right now and we are certainly offering our assistance to the other communities around us who have an interest in learning more about what we're doing and what are our successes and some of the barriers that we've seen thank you all right thank you and this goes to Captain Parrish I'd like to kind of expound on a question that council president asks but more about like what what are we seeing out there across the nation I know you're you're kind of the expert at this um from not only our local level but it kind of leaned on as a Statewide expert and National expert due to our work so I'm kind of curious like who are we emulating um is our you know people emulating us that sort of thing chair Remy council member Bankston oh thank you uh yeah I I think we are kind of ahead of the curve in in developing this alternative response model and you know if you've heard me talk about this before it's pretty basic it's right someone to call someone to come and somewhere to go and our efforts have been really focused on the someone to call right now and really building out that to have a better understanding and knowledge of what resources we do need to have available to deploy and and to send it send to folks um when you ask about the the question about municipalities there's a a large group in the state through omos that has been working on really setting some standards and developing uh policies and and processes for mobile crisis response whether those are first responder-led teams or community-led teams just the collaboration that's taken here in Columbus within our own City and the own agencies to to blend this model following rules that keep us in compliance and and doing things the right ways has has taken some time so imagine bringing in even more Partners into that into that mix so I've been working as part of that task force with the state to really help develop those standards and that will really help us guide as we build out our response models so one and that could be everything from you know these are licensed providers that operate rate in my case I operate under our medical director's license the clinicians operate under their own license when we're working together who's responsible for the care of that individual right what protocols are you following so it's not as easy as just putting a couple of folks together in a car and say hey go check on somebody there's a lot of compliance in and Regulatory issues that we still have to sort through and then you add the funding into that piece and there's opportunity for reimbursement models you know for these teams so there is a lot of work going on that space but our efforts to this point have been heavily focused on who to call and really building out the capacity in the cape and and that skill set for that component we've been fortunate that we've had teams like MCR and react in place for years now so we've learned a lot in those corresponder models we talked a little bit about the 988 and and you know the question for Dr Roberts about building out that Workforce and making this a 24 7 operation you know as we are all competing for staff to staff this could 988 be a great secondary backup during those after hours because they've already got a 24-hour operation there's still a lot of work that needs to be done but is there a possibility when our staff goes home that we can transfer those calls to 988 and they can still direct the response teams from from that piece and then that's a huge expander of the workforce that's available to do this work so um there are several models out there that are really great I think what we're building here is better than all of them um and I I don't say that just because it's us I I've seen the work I've I've met with folks from Denver and Albuquerque and uh Portland and Seattle and still communicate and share ideas with them regularly but I think what we're building from a totality of uh care system of care we are ahead of the Curve and talking a little bit about well I know there's other opportunities too like a nurse triage line you know with that maybe we will use as a form of dispatch uh could also help fill those gaps um the reimbursement model you know I think there it needs to be either fire or license clinician is that correct if for transport is am I thinking correctly of what I've Been Told yeah without getting too far into the Weeds on that there's there's so much regulation that goes into this from even from how your vehicle is staffed how it's equipped what its capabilities are you know Sergeant Harris mentioned that in the video he he mentioned that the MCR team transports around 1200 individuals to area hospitals or crisis centers every year and that's a small fraction of what Patrol and EMS transport as well but you know these these folks are going to a hospital to get mental health and a lot of time medical care and if the system was built appropriately and and trans and we met those compliance that could we could be reimbursed for those transports okay thank you very much Captain Parrish I appreciate it thank you to all of you for your presentation tonight I would like to move into the public speaking portion um of this and tonight we have six public speakers this evening and we have received one piece of written testimony as I call you up um I would like you to say your name in the organization that you may have be associated with and you will have three minutes to speak so our first Speaker this evening is Stephen David and following that will be Sue valillo foreign welcome back to council you have three minutes a cherry me uh councilmember Bankston thank you so much for hosting these conversations on our City's need for non-police emergency infrastructure my name is Stephen David I'm a social worker I live in Marion Village in Columbus Ohio and I'm a member of the Columbus safety Collective so for the past two years the Columbus safety Collective has been engaging our neighbors and elected leaders around our community's vision for non-police emergency response this fall alone we hosted five Community forums at churches on every side of our city to hear from residents about the need and their desire for this type of program it seems that everyone we talked to has this same story of something happening on their block wanting someone to call but holding deep reservations about involving police because of the risk of harm and contact with the criminal legal system so this is an opportunity that we have right here to provide the people of Columbus with what they are asking for we have this opportunity to rebuild our Public Safety infrastructure in a way that lifts up our communities and breaks the pipeline that funnels our black poor and disabled neighbors into the criminal legal system we can create a system that's based on health anti-racist values and a bold vision of the future that people can trust so the safety Collective has released and shared with your offices a blueprint for the crisis intervention and voluntary linkage program or civil program that we're um that we're calling this pilot we think that civil represents a scalable model for anti-racist Public Safety that prioritizes health and well-being makes decisions based on evidence and invests in our neighbors now the need for this type of program is well documented in our city council has collected your own data on this where people overwhelmingly support these kind of models and as Captain Parrish mentioned the efficacy of of non-police interventions is apparent in cities all across the country where we see these models come up and and we've um provided a crosswalk of those in that document for you long so I want to highlight a couple key pieces of our model that we think speak to some of the on the concerns raised tonight so First Trust is essential and needs to be built in from the beginning we are recommending the creation of a paid Advisory Board of community members to provide accountability and oversight for this program this program can be a model of how Public Safety can be responsive and directly accountable to community second we also recognize that neighbors are the true First Responders and have the most culturally fluent ways of addressing conflict so we need to lift up local expertise by incorporating hiring preferences for residents from high need zip codes including these things like signing bonuses and robust educational incentives for workers so they can see a pathway to leadership as part of the program structure and we are also recommending dedicated communication staff as part of this program to tell this story so we would like it we think we need investments in targeted Recruitment and being prepared to um to do more of this story time that we've seen today uh to really uplift what these programs can do you know there's a poster in my son's daycare that has um different community helpers so we see the firefighter and the nurse and the teacher and I can see a future where the community care worker is part of this story that we tell everyone in our city so the Columbus safety Collective is requesting that the city allocate 10 million dollars in the 2023 operating budget to launch this pilot so full funding here would be a bold endorsement of the people's Collective vision for a public safety system that prioritizes health and autonomy over incarceration and we think that invest investing in a robust pilot project now would further position the city of Columbus as a leader in this Nationwide movement towards alternative crisis response I'm happy to answer any questions that you have timed it just perfectly thank you very much do you have any questions this evening we certainly appreciate your advocacy as always thanks awesome thank you so much uh so sue you're up next um Aaron Harris show you're following please remember to state your name you have three minutes in any organization that you may be with thank you good evening chair roomie and council member Bankston my name is Sue valillo I am the vice president of Clinical Services for the Adam H Board of Franklin County Adam H commends the city of Columbus for their commitment to developing alternative response models in the city led by the Department of Public Safety and Columbus Public Health and we at Adam H thank them for their ongoing collaboration to creating a safety net for community members experiencing a Behavioral Health crisis we want to update this body and the public about some of the efforts Adam H is helping to lead to address a larger Continuum of Crisis Care ensuring our community has someone to call someone to come and somewhere to go I'll Focus my comments tonight on the first two components on July 16th of 2022 the federally mandated crisis number 988 became available providing a single three-digit number to Access a network of certified crisis call centers 988 users who are suicidal or experiencing a behavioral health emergency are connected to trained crisis counselors where they receive intervention and referrals for service Franklin County is served by two local call center providers a primary call center at North Central Mental Health Services and a backup at Netcare as the first year has been a soft launch we expect a more robust public marketing campaign for 988 in 2023 this will be a great opportunity to educate the community about the difference between 988 and 9-1-1 and when it's most appropriate to call each number as evidenced by the success of the right response unit and the mobile crisis response teams we know that Mental Health crisis are emergencies but not always Public Safety emergencies currently Adam H helps coordinate the mobile response stabilization Services through Nationwide Children's Hospital these are mobile crisis services for youth under the age of 21 who are experiencing a behavioral health emergency similar to and collaborating with the city's react team Adam H supports a react team operated by Southeast Healthcare to respond to opioid overdoses in addition Adam H is working with Franklin County Sheriff's Office Community intervention and diversion services to reinstate an embedded clinician program similar to cpd's mobile crisis response units in addition animation is planning to launch community-based mobile response teams in Franklin County in the first quarter of 2023 these intervention teams will include a clinician and a peer rather than a public safety officer and they will be dispatched through 988. this service will offer a person will offer in-person support to citizens who are experience a crisis when there is not an immediate safety need providing assistance will prevent a worsening crisis while freeing law enforcement and EMS to be deployed to where they are critically needed there's a lot of great work happening to transform our crisis Continuum and I thank you for listening to me happy to answer any questions if you have any brings yeah just one question around 988 number and I know that it's relatively new and it was brought up as a way for it I think to supplement some of the hours that are right Response Unit is offline is that possible right now with the current setup or how do we go about making sure we formalize that I think we would need to see if the technology is compatible that would probably be my first question but yes we've been collaborating very closely with the right Response Unit and if there are ways that 988 could be used to supplement during those hours where the call volume is lower into the right Response Unit that would make great sense and be a great resource for the community great and I noted this was an announcement that happened earlier to show around Net care and cutting back some of those hours how does that factor into the 988 number and are we looking at other partners like say maryhaven or something like that to help support net care as it relates to 988 Netcare will still be providing that Services both in Franklin County and in other counties throughout the state we are at nmhr working with a whole array of Community Partners to stand up some other crisis response in relation to that closing of services at Netcare thank you thank you very much appreciate you coming down this evening Aaron Harris and then following will be Helen Ann Sweeney welcome foreign good evening my name is Aaron Harris I am the bipolar ghost writer and I am actually with a few organizations Ohio families unite against police brutality and also disability rights of Ohio so I actually have something written that often my experience and then I have a few at the end so if I could just zoom in I'm sorry all right so I fight every day for my community every day I fight with My Soul because I am one of many that has experienced police brutality and I survived to see today and see what the police are trying to cover for my eyes and make sure that we do not see they think we are fools without the mental tools to see the type of games they play with our mental life has been chess so let me give you my testimony of the police trying to put me to rest being hit in the head stomped to the ground pulling out my dreads body left for dead but I'm here with no bloody tears to shed eyes dangling but my soul was still hanging this is my goal Riverside Hospital is where I almost died just by telling a cop that he lied but my community knows this is the type of pressure the cops apply they are bullies running the streets so once questioned or we do not comply bullets start to fly are those not the facts that the news show but the cops lie to distract us from the fact that they are not the ones we need helping people like me of color and unique mentality they need education you need to know people have different triggers and like he said before the uniform the gun the walkie-talkie all of that is visual triggers so seeing that is actually us feeling like we're a bear in the corner so that is just a trigger off its own so it's like we know that the cops do not have time to be patient because as you can see they're on the time limit so like we need patience and we need education we need them to know what triggers us and what does not and we need to know that they're there for us to be there to talk to us and I feel like giving them information from our file would just be red flags to them and it would just be kind of like threat threat threat that threat because a lot of stuff that we do we do not know of what we've done but it's like an experience of what has happened and actually seen on the other side and seeing what has been hidden is actually something I've been through and so I feel like I'm here to speak about that thank you thank you very much for sharing your experience I appreciate it uh helenie and Sweeney and then chaina Wiley good evening chairman raymie and um council member Bankston and the officials from Columbus my name is Helen Ian Sweeney I am testifying for bread regarding the alternative response infrastructure we support an alternative crisis response because the community has been over has overburdened law enforcement officers and with responsibilities that are ill-equipped to handle they have received minimal training on how to handle or interact with those having a mental health crisis or an OD event furthermore law enforcement officials cannot provide the necessary follow-up services to those in crisis this initiative will relieve law enforcement of having to respond and deal with situations that are beyond their scope of ability bread urges the city of Columbus to develop and Implement an efficient effective alternative crisis response system by the end of the upcoming fiscal year When developing this infrastructure we urge the city to include the following five components first the system should be available on all five police zones on a 24 7 basis second each police loan should have a crisis response team comprised of a crisis responder trained medical personnel in an individual with lived experience for follow-up coordination this follow-up coordination is extremely important to occur in the 24 to 48 hours to ensure that the individual crisis has received appropriate care and has been connected to needed resources the National Institute of Mental Health considers this follow-up system by peers to be an integral factor in reducing dust by Suicide fourth the city should create a standardized batch protocol so that dispatchers can determine whether the situation warrants either the police fire department and or crisis response team responds to the call an advisory committee comprised of Columbus residents should be formed to oversee the development implementation and ongoing program adjustments finally the city should meld the various crisis programs such as react into this alternative Christ response infrastructure so that citizens can access the various programs and resources efficiently and effectively thank you thank you very much Miss Sweeney we appreciate your testimony this evening China Wiley I hope I you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong and then patient Thomas will be online so apologies if I misspoke good evening it's Shawna Wiley I'm with Columbus safety Collective Dro Ohio families unite against police brutality and Ohio families unite for political action and change good evening council member Remy and council member Bankston I would like to reimagine Public Safety and and not I'm sorry guys I'm a little nervous and incorporate requests from the residents of Columbus our residents have been asking for a non-police response system to assist them during a crisis and they are still asking for it I am representing Jaron Thomas my youngest brother killed by CBD while in a mental health crisis Geron was in dire need of medical attention he had a diagnosis of schizophrenia Geron was so paranoid and scared all he wanted was the appropriate help he wanted to escape from this episode and feel safe Jaron thought he could trust our system to provide the help he needed in the most crucial time of his life Jaron called 9-1-1 in January of 2017 asking for an ambulance to provide medical attention and transport him to the hospital what did he get he got a group of officers responding to him and requesting him to put his hands behind his back while they handcuffed him he was totally confused on what he had done wrong and still very scared as the ambulance was held at Bay and he was beaten to death for something no other than the evil in the hearts of the responding officers the officers treated him as if he didn't exist and took his life due to not wanting to be bothered with another mental health call geron's story is a mirror of the correspondo model the police showed up at first and the ambulance and EMT were the co-responders and they were not allowed on the scene until drawn coded this is why Columbus safety Collective and the residents of Columbus want a non-police response system if Columbus had a system in place in 2017 giron would still be here to celebrate the upcoming holidays with his entire family I understand officers are not trained in mental health and that CIT training is nowhere near enough hours and does not prepare the officers for real life situations that involve care empathy de-escalation and realizing the humanity in which everyone deserves no matter race gender economic status education or housing status the city of Columbus has to do better there are countless people who are suffering Mental Health crisis and are not being responded to justly the residents of Columbus continue to ask for this service of a non-police response system if the city of Columbus wants to truly reimagine Public Safety we can start by funding and honoring the request of the residents the non-police response system is the starting point of reimagining Public Safety how beautiful would it be to send out trained clinicians peer support and neighborhood leaders to respond and take care of the calls and residents that are so delicate and in need of love care and Community to address their problems at hand thank you thank you so much Miss Wiley we appreciate you coming in tonight and finally we have Patia Thomas on WebEx so welcome thank you for providing your testimony this evening thank you so much councilman Remy and councilman Bankston um my name is Patia Thomas I'm an artist and Advocate and currently a Seminary Student at mtso and I'm serving on Columbus safety Collective probably with Jonna and Mr Stephen David to provide a viable framework to the city for a non-police response which asked even informed you we're calling the Civil program and so I therefore Echo the collective's request for 10 million dollars to stand up this pilot that we submitted so that we can add this to the offerings that were presented earlier by your team today my son Aaron is 23 years old he is six foot one he is 250 pounds he is a black man diagnosed with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder two months ago Aaron was in crisis and I called the non-emergency line as is customary in our family in our case when Aaron needs help we currently have no alternate narratives to having armed police show up which throws people also not into only into danger but unnecessarily into the carceral system until Aaron's particular crisis uh in September he had been understood and known by Worthington Police which I might add is a department who is now Contracting with Columbus Public Health For assistance with these types of crises so there is an immediate opportunity to help spread this non-police response into a neighboring City because the police know Aaron they're also aware that he had he was no threat to me nor to the community but in this case an officer decided four days later after the crisis to file her own domestic violence and aggravated menacing charges against Aaron even though I had refused to file charges there was a warrant for Aaron's arrest and he missed two weeks of work hiding to avoid arrest because he was certain not to fare well during arrest and incarceration this was not the right right response we learned that Aaron's white counterparts warrants are almost always set aside while they await trial but most often black alleged suspects are processed into the car suril system unnecessarily even though they're suffering from mental illness so we have had to spend unnecessary resources and time fighting these charges and this would not be happening if we had a non-police response in place so I'm asking just to Echo the collective that you please fund the pilot which the safety Collective has submitted so that we can provide this vital service to our community in a way that is measurable and sustainable we have completed five Area Community conversations as Mr David already pointed out so that we could help educate and hear back from our city about this model and we'll continue to educate as we advocate for this necessary response thank you so much for your time thank you very much Miss Thomas we appreciate you sharing your experience and certainly council president and I had met earlier with the Columbus safety Collective about a month ago or so and keeping in close contact to make sure that we're sharing our thoughts and and ideas and striving to achieve many of the goals that we both share and so I appreciate all the testimony this evening it is been helpful this is certainly not the end of the discussion but pretty much the beginning so as we continue to evolve and and grow what this looks like with the city of Columbus we're going to make sure that we stay engaged make sure we get a web page up for people uh so that that there is information available and it's it's something that's readily available we are very thankful for each of the presenters this evening including deputy director Dan Gian Gardella Cancun's Dr mashika Roberts Sumerian Stucky and thank you for the thoughtful and robust comprehensive presentation that that we received if you are watching this hearing online and I know there were several commoners and and others that were paying attention and we thank you for doing so um or if you're here in Chambers I know that a copy of the presentation was handed out but you can also reach out to my office for a copy by emailing lucyfrank at ljfrank Columbus Dot of I want to thank Zach Davidson and with the council president's office Chris Maitland and John Oswalt with our legislative research team my team Jeff Carter Jeffrey Carter and Lucy Frank Nia Hairston in Communications Mark Carter for our technology needs in the CTV team for their assistance in preparing for this hearing tonight I also want to thank the community for their support and for tuning in to tonight's hearing councilmember Bankston are you good to go uh yeah I just want to make sure one is the the newcomer to council commend you all and all of us really for this work that we're doing is hard work and you know I got onto a council that believed in this idea of reimagining safety and so proud to be a part of work but I do want to just make sure I speak to our last folks that gave testimony I think it was the four or five or so that there there's no questions from me and I don't want it to gloss over and I want to thank you for being vulnerable enough to tell your stories and to share your pain with us and for me it's my first time hearing it so it was really helpful to me so I just want to make sure that I didn't just gloss over that fact for you all so thank you for being here and I wanted to encourage you all please to continue to engage with all of the council members around us we want to get it right I think that what you see from the data that we have seen today is that we're moving in the right direction but we will continue to have work to do what I've always said to folks all the time about progress and about Justice it is not a destination it is a journey and we have to always continue to move in that direction to have it more just and to have a more fair uh Columbus in society so thank you all for your testimony today please continue to engage with us as we go through this because we have to co-create this uh together so just wanted to make sure I emphasized it and thank you again councilmember Remy for your leadership absolutely thank you for those comments as well um you know we we appreciate everybody coming in this evening I also want to thank Adrian Hood who also commented online uh during the testimony and we appreciate that um the community it's so important that we keep you engaged and you understand exactly what the work that's being done by the people that you see here this evening and many more that weren't here um you know it's our mission to make sure that we stand this up it's successful it's robust it meets the needs of the community and so I do want to thank Captain Paris Sergeant Harris and your entire teams for the work that you're doing day in and day out and so it's very very important so that concludes this evening's hearing and I want to tell everybody to stay safe and have a great evening thank you