Advocates push for a Knoxville crisis response team that doesn't involve police officers

Community advocates are pushing Knoxville to establish a crisis response team that would show up for emergency calls without police to assist those experiencing mental health or addiction emergencies.

The team would differ from the police department's existing partnership with the McNabb Center, which pairs officers with mental health experts on certain distress calls. The new team would be dispatched as trained experts who are a lower-cost alternative to sending firefighters or police.

Knoxville City Council member Amelia Parker is asking for $50,000 in taxpayer support for a task force that would first establish a pilot program to test the idea. But that proposal was tabled after hours of public testimony and discussion May 30.

Parker told Knox News the city needs services for vulnerable people who do not call for help because they fear they could be arrested. That fear can contribute to an increase in overdose deaths. About 500 people died of suspected drug overdoses in 2022 in Knox County, according to the DA's office.

“Adopting an alternative response program is an initiative in which multiple council members have expressed support since 2020," Parker said. "However, questions remain regarding the best way forward for this program."

As initially proposed, the task force would be selected by the council, would include mental health clinicians, police, emergency room staff and nonprofit representatives, and would develop a pilot program within eight months.

But after multiple council members expressed reservations, Parker asked for more time to achieve consensus and promised to bring back an amended resolution June 27.

Why an alternative response team?

Healing EastTN Alternative Response Team member Alex Rifwald told Knox News she sees the need for this type of team.

"There are those who won't call for crisis care because they're afraid of what will happen if the police show up," Rifwald said. "We really need a response that is not attached to police officers, because it has shown the presence of a police officer can escalate someone in crisis."

More than a dozen people spoke at the meeting in favor of Parker's resolution, with many saying the community's resources are failing people.

Dr. Eboni Winford, director of research and health equity at Cherokee Health Systems, shared a recent encounter involving a patient in crisis, who finally agreed to get help. But after Winford called 911 and requested a coresponder team, they never showed up.

"I'm still waiting for them to arrive to take my patient in for care," she said. “This is not an insult to the people doing the work because I know our workforce is strained. ... I understand that our hospitals are backlogged. I understand that our police officers are being asked to do roles and fulfill functions for which they have very limited training."

"I'm a Black woman," Winford continued. "Interactions with law enforcement are scary to me. And as someone who has to convince people who look like me to trust me enough to contact people to help them, and when the help doesn't come or when it does come it leads to harm ... there has got to be a different, a better way."

What kind of mental health crisis response is already provided in Knoxville?

In 2020, Knoxville started a coresponder program where police officers partner with behavioral health workers from the McNabb Center. The teams primarily respond to 911 calls or requests from officers, and the team mostly helps people who have made some kind of suicidal threat, police department spokesman Scott Erland said.

The program initially consisted of one team, but increased funding allowed the city to create four teams available from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week.

The teams responded to over 1,500 calls in 2022, the first full year of the program, and have averaged more than 45 minutes per call, Erland said.

Why do advocates think an alternative response team would be better than a coresponder team?

When the coresponder teams were proposed in 2020, local psychologist Dr. Sarah Hawkins pushed back against the Knoxville Police Department proposal.

Hawkins said people in crisis are far less likely to trust a health care worker when they arrive with police in a squad car. This is especially true, she said, for substance abuse calls when people worry they'll be arrested.

The alternative response teams would respond to calls including wellness checks, conflict resolution, basic first aid, suicidal ideation and other mental health crises, and concerns around homelessness. The teams would provide assessment, intervention and transport to services as needed.

Proponents argue such teams that don't include law enforcement have better results and cost less to boot.

A 2020 study by the Government Law Center at Albany Law School found that cities with alternative response teams benefit from significant cost savings, resulting in a potential savings of $200 to $400 per call diverted from police and fire departments. The study noted programs have been in operation for at least a year in Austin, Texas; Eugene, Oregon; Olympia, Washington; and Edmonton, Canada.

All of the police departments viewed their crisis-response programs positively, the Albany study found. They generally recognized that the workers are better suited to handle certain call types and that when they do, it frees up police to work on other matters.

Denver’s STAR pilot program was launched in 2020, and crews responded to 748 calls in six months. No calls required police backup, and no one was arrested. The Denver City Council allocated $3.8 million to expand the program in its 2022 budget.

Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets in Eugene, Oregon, is one of the longest-running programs in the country, launching in 1989. In 2017, the CAHOOTS teams answered 17% of the Eugene Police Department’s overall call volume. The program saves the city of Eugene an estimated $8.5 million in public safety spending annually.

Less than 2% of the calls the Knoxville Police Department responded to in 2019 were for violent crimes against people (3,855 out of 275,121), according to Healing EastTN Alternative Response Team.

Why did the proposal stall out?

Parker's resolution, which was short on details, garnered support only from council member Seema Singh.

"We've been talking about this for a really long time, three years," Singh said, saying $50,000 was a "very small amount" to start moving forward.

Other council members expressed concern over the lack of buy-in from other governmental entities and from major behavioral health service providers. Rifwald acknowledged her group had not reached out to the McNabb Center in part because, she said, "our values don't align with the co-responder program."

Liz Kellar is a public safety reporter. Email lkellar@knoxnews.com. Angela Dennis is the Knox News social justice, race and equity reporter. You can reach her by email at angela.dennis@knoxnews.com or by phone at 865-407-9712.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Advocates push for a Knoxville crisis team that doesn't involve police