Street roots., December 07, 2018, Page 5, Image 5

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OUTLAW, from page 4
community?”
As a result of that, I did request the
Independent Police Review out of the
Auditor s Office to take a look at our policies
to see if there was something systemically
that we were doing to create these
disproportionalities outside of what we saw
in frofrt of US, meaning the calls for service
and being reactive to what’s there.
Now, when we do make an arrest, it
doesn’t necessarily always mean it’s a bad
thing, meaning that someone goes to jail
and they remain in jail. It could also mean
that they get services that they need, or
after our interaction we make referrals to
partner agencies or they may even be
referred to our service coordination team to
get housing.
Green: Is p a rt o f the problem that residents
are calling police because there’s nobody else to
call? I know on the police log it’s like,
“Unwanted person, unwanted person,
suspicious person, suspicious person,” and like
you said, you have to respond to these calls. Is
Part o f the problem that the city isn’t providing
another avenue fo r people to deal with the
issues that they’re seeing?
Outlaw: Is it the city? Is it the county?
Whose baby is it?
There needs to be a shared
understanding of the services that are
needed and who is responsible for providing
these services.
You asked me a question, but I agree with
you - in that PPJ^jyp’re at the forefront qf *
the issue because we’re first responders^
We’re 24/7. You call dispatch; you know
we’re going to come because aside from the
fire department, we’re the only ones that
are available in that capacity.
It would be awesome to have another
entity of some sort available to respond to
what these needs are. But when you have
the vague details of “unwanted person,
suspicious person,” and there is a perceived
nexus to a crime, we have to come to
investigate.
In the meantime, on a very short-term
basis, we have placed a sworn resource at
the (911) dispatch center to assist with
triaging some of these calls, to help
dispatchers determine whether or not this
really is a call for PPB or this is a call that
needs to be referred to services of some
other kind with a nexus to mental health
needs or some other things.
We just started it (in November), so I
don’t have the ability to report out on how
effective it’s been, but the whole purpose of
that is to see if there are other ways on the
front end, we could figure out ways to get
the right people in the right places at the
right time.
Green: Can you give us a couple of
examples o f the types o f calls that your bureau
has been getting a lot o f that you would like to
divert somewhere else?
Outlaw: Calls without a criminal nexus
would be a good start. On its surface, you
might get someone posted outside of a
business, right? And it might detract
potential customers from coming inside a
business, o r someone might have been
sitting on the sidewalk in front of someone’s
home, not really bothering anybody. Clearly
they’re in need of services, but if there is a
perception by that resident that there’s a
need for them to be in fear, they’ll call the
police. When we respond, if We learn that
this person really isn’t doing anything or
committing any crimes, they are just
present, but they need services of some
sort. Is there another way to ascertain that
without us having to respond to make that
determination?
Street Roots reporter John
Emshwiller: How would
it work then, i f you get a
call like that and your
sworn personnel say, “Well,
this is not really a police
call”? Who do you then
send it to, to get out there
in any kind o f timely
fashion?
especially when you talk about mental-health
situations, the uniform, a lot o f times, triggers
that response o f freaking out or whatever, that
a lot o f times escalates to something more
serious. Where I ’m from - I ’m from Phoenix,
diligently in the last year to make sure that
the ECIT (Enhanced Crisis Intervention
Team) officers are dispatched to more of
these calls. And we’ve been able to increase
. those numbers by working with the dispatch
ce n te r.
service people ride along with police. I f i t was
more o f a mental-health thing, the police d idn’t
react; they stayed in the car and let the
behavioral health service
person interact with it.
That de-escalated a lot o f
things because they weren’t
talking to a cop; they were
talking to what they
perceived as a doctor o f a
nurse or something along
those lines. Is that
something that could be
used, maybe in the future?
« There'needs
to be a shared
understanding
of- the services,
that are needed
and who is
responsible for
providing these,
services;
Outlaw: Well that’s the
key - you asked “timely
Outlaw: When I first
fashion.”
got here, I learned that
I share with folks, even
the way the behaivioral
our new officers th at
health response team was
come in, I say look,
set up, it’s with an officer
policing is changing, folks,
and we’re adapting and
and a clinician a lot of
we’re learning, but the
the response was*after
nature of our calls are
the fact; it was follow-up.
Danielle Outlaw
becoming far more
Where I come from, it
complex, and we’re taking -Portland.policeehfef „
was exactly what you’re
longer in our calls. Once
talking about: It was a
officers get there, we’re
clinician and an officer,
training them to identify
but they responded to
partner agencies to refer them to. And that
actual calls. When they heard the call come
can take time, either to get responses back
out, they would take those calls, and the
or to find availability for whatever it is
impact, for the most part, was exactly what
they’re looking for, to abate whatever that
you just described.
issue is that we were called for in the f ir s t;
We are moving towards a more hybrid
place. If there is no crime there, they’ll
model so that we can have both, and we’re
make a police report and document in the
not just follow-up.
report basically that this is in need of a
The issue for us is getting enough
referral, and then our behavioral health unit
clinicians that are willing to do that.
folks will come out after and follow-up with
In the short term, our officers all receive
folks and try to identify services.
crisis intervention training, and then we also
have a cadre of officers that had enhanced
Street Roots vendor Sean Sheffield:
training that gdes beyond the regular
Behavioral health services - why aren’t they
training, and we’ve been working very
doing a ride-along with police, because
Sheffield: The police response when it-,
comes to a homeless individual an example
would be, police are responding to a domestic
disturbance in a housing situation: There is
one maybe two cop cars that show up. B u t I ’ve
seen myself a couple arguing and there are five
or six cop cars, and like eight or 10 cops
around two people - who are homeless, or
maybe not even homeless but a couple having
an argument out in the street. Is that police
procedure, or is that ju st something police have
done in the past that they are still enforcing
today?
Outlaw: That’s a really good question.
It’s a fair question, and unfortunately I don’t
have a definite response to that because the
answer is: It depends. Our response is
dictated by what we know and what we don’t
know.
There’s no cookie Gutter. We train to
ensure the safety of everyone involved. If
you have something out in the middle of the
street: What time of day is it? How many
people are around? Are there bystanders?
Are there other people that can be impacted
by what’s going on here? If that’s the case, if
it’s a busy street, if there’s a lot going on, if
it’s a main thoroughfare, we might have
more officers there to contain the situation
and allow the primary responding officers to
work directly with those who are involved.
But I understand, optically, it can look like
you got this little altercation in the middle of
the street with two people, and you’ve got
16 officers here. But they might be there to
be handling other things on the perimeter.
Now, I would become concerned if you’re
saying you got two people in a dispute and
you have 16 officers standing around these
See OUTLAW, page 10