Eugene Police Department to adopt new Behavioral Health Co-Response Team to handle mental health crises downtown

[LizBeth]

Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013 and the murder of George Floyd in 2020, law enforcement agencies across the country have been faced with increased public demand to incorporate mental health professionals into their agencies. The new partnership will make the EPD one of few police departments nationwide to adopt a co-response model for mental health emergencies.

“The primary goal here is recognizing not everybody that's suffering from a behavioral mental health crisis is also committing [a] crime,” Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner explained. “We're going to try to continue to match the right response with the right need, then we need to have a response for those folks, so we want our partners at Lane County to come alongside of us and [in] a co-response model … we need that tool in our tool belt.”

https://www.dailyemerald.com/news/eugene-police-department-to-adopt-new-behavioral-health-co-response-team-to-handle-mental-health/article_6adba506-7f62-11ee-82fc-cf2dbec69702.html?fbclid=IwAR113bA519Xlu0y85soi6hqctp-1HQQS5D5ZbIKXEdE884ZnAYK3pLaxUwM

[ZZenith]

1. Eugene also has a program called "Cahoots" that needs to go nationwide.

https://www.eugene-or.gov/4508/CAHOOTS

[LizBeth]

4. Lived in Eugene. Yes. I had to deal a couple times being in hotel

Excellent program and police hung way back and did not escalate but allow cahoots to handle

[Think. Again.]

2. An excellent start...

...now if we can somehow remove the financial incentives that law enforcement agencies have to continually build on their arrest numbers....

[republianmushroom]

3. Good