US Anti-Police Protests and Riots Thread III

[Borderlands of Rojava]

You could always read about all good and proper police, or at least go read up on every incident of police shooting and killing people; the vast majority of the time, it's perfectly justified. (Sadly, sometimes it's not though.) Donut Operator did a video on exactly that once. It's quite long, but you can show it to people who keep acting like police are just out there shooting every dark skinned person they see for "no reason". (Not to say police brutality or at the very least lack of professionalism isn't a problem; it's a HUGE one in America. I know from firsthand experience.)

It is rather surprising, the difference between the media presentation of police shootings, and the statistical realities of it, and how it's painted as some tragic genocidal epidemic. According to the US DOJ, something like 63 million police traffic stops in 2018, and only about 1k turned fatal, relatively divided along proportions of race by their total percentage of population. An overwhelming preponderance of them were armed and/or wigging out.

And I agree, police as an institution are mostly useless and care only about that sweet pension. not doing their jobs in a way that is honorable to their office. You ever try to get them to investigate something? Good luck. It almost makes me sympathize with the defund the police crowd, but then you get into issues like civilian disarmament with a lot of them, which, if there were no police, private force becomes the sole arbiter of civil order outside of a tenuous social contract that is rapidly decaying.

Just like with covid, the fatal police shootings are only the tip of the iceberg.

[Galloism]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/539945-75-year-old-protester-pushed-by-buffalo-officers-files-lawsuit?fbclid=IwAR3k7uxn5todBRtdsOdMPu9Gf9SwBd979hRR7HPcLu3wPxtelg6rr0bZvzs

The 75 year old man in Buffalo who was pushed to the ground by police and suffered a skull fracture is suing the city.

I hope he wins.

[San Lumen]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/539945-75-year-old-protester-pushed-by-buffalo-officers-files-lawsuit?fbclid=IwAR3k7uxn5todBRtdsOdMPu9Gf9SwBd979hRR7HPcLu3wPxtelg6rr0bZvzs

The 75 year old man in Buffalo who was pushed to the ground by police and suffered a skull fracture is suing the city.

I hope he wins.

so do I. What those officers did was inexcusable.

[Neutraligon]

Seems to me that police need a better method of investigating misconduct, since internal reviews are clearly not working.

[Genivaria]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/539945-75-year-old-protester-pushed-by-buffalo-officers-files-lawsuit?fbclid=IwAR3k7uxn5todBRtdsOdMPu9Gf9SwBd979hRR7HPcLu3wPxtelg6rr0bZvzs

The 75 year old man in Buffalo who was pushed to the ground by police and suffered a skull fracture is suing the city.

I hope he wins.

Same, fuck the city government of Buffalo.

[Genivaria]

I hope he wins.

so do I. What those officers did was inexcusable.

I didn't realize that there was a wikipedia page about this.

Martin Gugino, born October 15, 1944, is an American peace activist associated with the Catholic Worker Movement.[12] He worked with the Western New York Peace Center after his retirement, and was also interested in other political issues like Guantánamo Bay and climate change. He is a native of Buffalo but worked later in Cleveland as a computer technician. He resides in Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_p ... g_incident

No reason or justification is given for why the charges against the officers were dismissed. Inexcusable corruption.

[Gravlen]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/539945-75-year-old-protester-pushed-by-buffalo-officers-files-lawsuit?fbclid=IwAR3k7uxn5todBRtdsOdMPu9Gf9SwBd979hRR7HPcLu3wPxtelg6rr0bZvzs

The 75 year old man in Buffalo who was pushed to the ground by police and suffered a skull fracture is suing the city.

Good! I fully support this suit.

[Kowani]

The Rochester police officers who suffocated Daniel Prude with a mesh hood will not face charges

[Borderlands of Rojava]

The Rochester police officers who suffocated Daniel Prude with a mesh hood will not face charges

And people act surprised when riots happen.

[San Lumen]

The Rochester police officers who suffocated Daniel Prude with a mesh hood will not face charges

and police wonder why there is a disconnect between them and the community and why unrest happens. People see officers as being able to get away with anything and their fellow officers never condemn it.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

The Rochester police officers who suffocated Daniel Prude with a mesh hood will not face charges

and police wonder why there is a disconnect between them and the community and why unrest happens. People see officers as being able to get away with anything and their fellow officers never condemn it.

I fear no ordinary man, but that *points at squad car* that scares me.

[San Lumen]

and police wonder why there is a disconnect between them and the community and why unrest happens. People see officers as being able to get away with anything and their fellow officers never condemn it.

I fear no ordinary man, but that *points at squad car* that scares me.

after what took place during the Floyd protests nationwide I cannot fault you. The compilation video I saw of officers was appalling. In New York an officer rammed into a bunch of protesters through a barricade.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

I fear no ordinary man, but that *points at squad car* that scares me.

after what took place during the Floyd protests nationwide I cannot fault you. The compilation video I saw of officers was appalling. In New York an officer rammed into a bunch of protesters through a barricade.

The police are out of control. They've been acting more like a gang.

[San Lumen]

after what took place during the Floyd protests nationwide I cannot fault you. The compilation video I saw of officers was appalling. In New York an officer rammed into a bunch of protesters through a barricade.

The police are out of control. They've been acting more like a gang.

I agree. Its getting insane. The fact that the union president in Rochester couldn't condemn a nine year old girl being pepper sprayed is unfathomable. He has no business being a cop.

[Galloism]

So, I apparently have too much time on my hands.

But someone else has even more. They took every single clip and video they could find and verify was from Kenosha the night of the shootings and synchronized them for when they happened.

https://youtu.be/7ferrn7Shyk

I watched it. Because I'm an idiot with nothing to do apparently.

Anyway, a few things that jump out at me about the time prior to the shootings:

The people Kyle were with stated they were not affiliated with the Kenosha guard (a bunch of mostly locals who decided they were going to protect their city or whatever), but Kyle Rittenhouse interjected and said "kinda". I'm more convinced than ever he's probably an idiot.

Original footage actually doesn't show Ryan Balch or his crew anywhere on scene. It looks like Ryan Balch rolled up on Kyle Rittenhouse after he had already been there a while with Dominick Black and somebody else. It doesn't look like they knew each other at all.

They appear to have free access to the building they were standing in front/on top of. The front door is unlocked, and they move in and out of the building at least a couple times on video. The lights are also on inside. This implies someone who has access gave them access, given there's no observable damage or breaking and entering into the building, nor was anyone charged with such.

Kyle actually spent most of the night (about 3 hours) several blocks from the disturbance standing outside this mechanic shop doing nothing much in particular.

The group of men armed with shotguns and AR-15s that are on video talking to the black lives matter protestors and pledging their support and saying "no lives matter until black lives matter" don't appear to be associated with Rittenhouse at all. They appear to be a separate group of BLM protestors armed with shotguns and AR-15s. It's this group Rosenbaum mixes it up with later and has to be physically held back by Black Lives Matter protestors.

In fact, Rittenhouse never actually moves towards the crowd that was protesting/rioting a few blocks away. The police push the crowd towards him, and he winds up in the middle after police push the crowd into his group. It's hard to say he was "looking for trouble" when he never actually moves towards trouble, and the trouble is actually being pushed towards him by police.

Even once the crowd is pushed towards them, Rittenhouse doesn't seem to inspire fear or concern in anyone - including the black lives matter protestors. He's mostly ignored. There's so many people there with guns he doesn't actually even really stick out. No one appears afraid of him at all.

During this time, he is on film offering medical to a black lives matter protestor with some kind of a foot injury being helped by two other BLM protestors. The camera keeps panning on and off so it's hard to see exactly, but it appears that they bring that person over to him behind the militia keeping the crowd back from the building, then Rittenhouse hands his rifle to another guy who was with them, and Rittenhouse begins treating him.

Balch appears to take on a bit of a "mentor" role to him almost immediately. He even takes Rittenhouse allegedly to treat someone else who is injured but away from the building, under Balch's guard (this treatment isn't on camera, but them talking about it is). He's a big intimidating guy, and it appears Rittenhouse immediately started trusting him to keep him safe in this situation he's in.

It's still unclear how Rittenhouse and Balch got separated, but there is a clip showing Rittenhouse after he gets turned back by police from returning to the mechanic shop walking back among the gas station near the building. Again, no one actually seems bothered by him at all. He might be looking for Balch, but it's hard to say.

At the same time, you can see Balch walking the opposite direction in front of the gas station clearly looking for Rittenhouse. Because there's so many people at the gas station, even though they're only about 20 feet apart at the nearest point, they miss each other and don't see each other. This is only four minutes or so before the attack.

For unknown reasons, Rittenhouse starts running across the gas station with the fire extinguisher and takes off down the street. Again, no one seems threatened by this. A few people look at him quizzically, a member of the press starts chasing him, but most people seem to ignore him still.

Rosenbaum actually gets ahead of Rittenhouse and takes up a position amongst the cars and is on video charging on Rittenhouse from out among the cars. I was wrong about Rosenbaum "stalking" behind Rittenhouse. He's actually ahead of him, and breaks into a jog to get far enough ahead to take up a hiding/cover place amongst some cars in the car lot. He's actually on camera (very blurry, but you can see the motion and the time matches) running around the SUV directly towards Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse was even aware of him. We can tell that Rittenhouse did not provoke the attack - the attack began before he was even aware Rosenbaum was there.

Most of the rest we've all seen and talked about.

[Gravlen]

I feel like the attention given to Rittenhouse has been disproportionate, but since there's various reasons for that, I'm feeding the beast with this video:

Kyle Rittenhouse Shooting: He's Not the Problem. A Legal Analysis.

It's an interesting perspective, looking a bit wider than just the specific case, and explaining a bit more about the place this case holds in the criminal justice system. That's a perspective which is more interesting to me. Here's her first video, which she references. The older video goes more directly into the case, but I didn't like as much because I felt it was too superficial.

[Senkaku]

it must say something that in a thread ostensibly about protests and unrest prompted by the murder of Black people, NSG has chosen to spend most of it talking about a white kid

[Vassenor]

it must say something that in a thread ostensibly about protests and unrest prompted by the murder of Black people, NSG has chosen to spend most of it talking about a white kid

Because he's the real victim in all this. Just ignore that he willingly travelled across state lines to involve himself in the situation.

[Kowani]

Denver tried a special mental health unit instead of police

Another US city is reporting early success with a program that replaces traditional law enforcement responders with health care workers for some emergency calls.

Previously, Denver 911 operators only directed calls to police or fire department first responders. But the Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) pilot program created a third track for directing emergency calls to a two-person team: a medic and a clinician, staffed in a van from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays.

The STAR program, which launched in June, reported promising results in its six-month progress report. The program aims to provide a "person-centric mobile crisis response" to community members who are experiencing problems related to mental health, depression, poverty, homelessness, or substance abuse issues.

Denver is among several U.S. cities working to develop an alternative emergency responder model for people who are experiencing mental health crises, as police officers fatally shoot hundreds of people experiencing mental health crises every year, according to a Washington Post database of fatal shootings by on-duty police officers. Since 2015, police have fatally shot nearly 1,400 people with mental illnesses, according to the database.


Over the first six months of the pilot, Denver received more than 2,500 emergency calls that fell into the STAR program's purview, and the STAR team was able to respond to 748 calls. No calls required the assistance of police, and no one was arrested.

Denver police responded to nearly 95,000 incidents over the same period, suggesting that an expanded STAR program could reduce police calls by nearly 3%, according to the report.

"Overall, the first six months has kind of been a proof of concept of what we wanted," said Vinnie Cervantes, a member of Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, one of the organizations involved with the STAR program. "We've continued to try to work to make it something that is truly a community-city partnership." Data collected during the pilot program found that STAR calls were focused in certain areas of the city, and most were calls for trespassing and welfare checks. Approximately 68% of people contacted were experiencing homelessness, and there were mental health concerns in 61% of cases – largely schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder – with 33% of people having co-occurring conditions, according to the report.


Carleigh Sailon, a social worker with the Mental Health Center of Denver who works out of the STAR van, said she takes a "non-judgmental, client-centered, supportive" approach to assisting people in crisis.

"The intent of STAR is to send the right response, not a one-size fit all response. People call 911 for an array of reasons and it’s not always something that involves risk or a criminal element," Sailon said in a statement. "If the STAR van can handle someone in crisis and that frees up police to handle a robbery or domestic violence call, then that’s an incredible success."

The report comes on the heels of a year that saw thousands of protests nationwide in response to the killings of several Black men and women, as well as a series of high-profile police killings of people experiencing mental health crises, including Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, and Walter Wallace, Jr. in Philadelphia. Many protesters called on their local governments to redirect funding away from police departments.

In recent years, some police departments, such as in Los Angeles and San Antonio, have partnered with mental health professionals to work as "co-responders," assisting street cops responding to incidents involving a mental health crisis. In the wake of Breonna Taylor's killing in Louisville last year, the city increased its police budget and put money toward exploring co-responder models. And Chicago is expected to begin piloting a co-responder program this year.

But other cities rely on emergency response models that do not involve police. The Denver program is modeled after the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) in Eugene, Oregon. White Bird Clinic, a health care center in the city, launched the program as a community policing initiative in 1989.

Like the Denver program, CAHOOTS responds to a range of mental health-related crises and relies on techniques that are focused on harm reduction. With a budget of about $2.1 million annually, CAHOOTS answered 17% of the Eugene Police Department's overall call volume in 2017, according to the program.

In 2019, Cervantes traveled with a group from Denver to Eugene to study the CAHOOTS model. Cervantes said his organization, the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, is working with about ten other cities in Colorado to draft co-responder models. Aurora – where 23-year-old Elijah McClain died after officers stopped him on the street in 2019 – is expected to launch its pilot in about a month, Cervantes said.

Jan. 15:Family of man fatally shot by Texas officer responding to mental health call want arrest

On the East Coast, New York City announced plans in November to launch a similar pilot program in two neighborhoods.

For the coming year, Denver has allocated $1.4 million in the city's budget to continue the STAR program, according to the report. The funding would be enough to purchase four additional vans and fund six new two-person teams, as well as a full-time supervisor, the report said. The program is also transitioning from the city's safety department to its public health department.

Cervantes said that, as the program goes forward, he hopes to see more complete data on who the program is serving. Current data does not list race or ethnicity for a third of people served by the program, Cervantes said.

"That's something that surprises me," Cervantes said. "How do we really understand the impact of the most marginalized communities in Denver if we don’t have the data there?"

Cervantes said the STAR program set out to connect residents in crisis with social services in the city, as well as identify the gaps in many of the services. When the coronavirus pandemic shut down many of the existing services, it made STAR's task more difficult.

"With COVID, some of the services that would typically be available weren’t quite in full service. That’s something the STAR program had to adapt to," he said.

The STAR program is organized through a coalition of city agencies and organizations, including the Denver Police Department, Denver Health Paramedic Division, Denver 911, the Caring for Denver Foundation, the Mental Health Center of Denver and community supporters.

[Galloism]

it must say something that in a thread ostensibly about protests and unrest prompted by the murder of Black people, NSG has chosen to spend most of it talking about a white kid

Because he's the real victim in all this.

Yes, typically speaking the person who is randomly attacked for no legal reason by a violently mentally ill person is thought of as the victim.

The person who does the violent unprovoked attacking is typically thought of as the perpetrator.

In the macro sense, the police also have a lot of blame because of their tactics that night.

Just ignore that he willingly travelled across state lines to involve himself in the situation.

Another good meme, but also not true. He actually didn't even travel to Kenosha that day. He traveled there the previous day to do his day job as a lifeguard. He then stayed at a friend's house that night (likely Dominick Black's), and chose not to travel home the next day, staying in Kenosha.

He didn't have to travel the 20 minutes and cross an invisible line to go to Kenosha. He was already there on other business, and just didn't leave.

Your argument here is based on misinformation and at least political (if not openly racist) hatred. Nothing more.

[Galloism]

it must say something that in a thread ostensibly about protests and unrest prompted by the murder of Black people, NSG has chosen to spend most of it talking about a white kid

There's a really easy phenomenon to explain this.

Aside from a few people we've already run off by arguing them into the ground, everyone agrees the police actions of the past long time have been despicable and unacceptable. There's no one left to prove wrong. And most of us, well...

[Fahran]

it must say something that in a thread ostensibly about protests and unrest prompted by the murder of Black people, NSG has chosen to spend most of it talking about a white kid

It's largely because nobody here really has a vested interest in arguing that police should kill black people. Some people here do seem to have a vested interest in arguing that people who are assaulted by violent mobs (mostly of white people) and who then defend themselves should go to prison.

[Neutraligon]

Denver tried a special mental health unit instead of police

Another US city is reporting early success with a program that replaces traditional law enforcement responders with health care workers for some emergency calls.

Previously, Denver 911 operators only directed calls to police or fire department first responders. But the Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) pilot program created a third track for directing emergency calls to a two-person team: a medic and a clinician, staffed in a van from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays.

The STAR program, which launched in June, reported promising results in its six-month progress report. The program aims to provide a "person-centric mobile crisis response" to community members who are experiencing problems related to mental health, depression, poverty, homelessness, or substance abuse issues.

Denver is among several U.S. cities working to develop an alternative emergency responder model for people who are experiencing mental health crises, as police officers fatally shoot hundreds of people experiencing mental health crises every year, according to a Washington Post database of fatal shootings by on-duty police officers. Since 2015, police have fatally shot nearly 1,400 people with mental illnesses, according to the database.


Over the first six months of the pilot, Denver received more than 2,500 emergency calls that fell into the STAR program's purview, and the STAR team was able to respond to 748 calls. No calls required the assistance of police, and no one was arrested.

Denver police responded to nearly 95,000 incidents over the same period, suggesting that an expanded STAR program could reduce police calls by nearly 3%, according to the report.

"Overall, the first six months has kind of been a proof of concept of what we wanted," said Vinnie Cervantes, a member of Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, one of the organizations involved with the STAR program. "We've continued to try to work to make it something that is truly a community-city partnership." Data collected during the pilot program found that STAR calls were focused in certain areas of the city, and most were calls for trespassing and welfare checks. Approximately 68% of people contacted were experiencing homelessness, and there were mental health concerns in 61% of cases – largely schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder – with 33% of people having co-occurring conditions, according to the report.


Carleigh Sailon, a social worker with the Mental Health Center of Denver who works out of the STAR van, said she takes a "non-judgmental, client-centered, supportive" approach to assisting people in crisis.

"The intent of STAR is to send the right response, not a one-size fit all response. People call 911 for an array of reasons and it’s not always something that involves risk or a criminal element," Sailon said in a statement. "If the STAR van can handle someone in crisis and that frees up police to handle a robbery or domestic violence call, then that’s an incredible success."

The report comes on the heels of a year that saw thousands of protests nationwide in response to the killings of several Black men and women, as well as a series of high-profile police killings of people experiencing mental health crises, including Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, and Walter Wallace, Jr. in Philadelphia. Many protesters called on their local governments to redirect funding away from police departments.

In recent years, some police departments, such as in Los Angeles and San Antonio, have partnered with mental health professionals to work as "co-responders," assisting street cops responding to incidents involving a mental health crisis. In the wake of Breonna Taylor's killing in Louisville last year, the city increased its police budget and put money toward exploring co-responder models. And Chicago is expected to begin piloting a co-responder program this year.

But other cities rely on emergency response models that do not involve police. The Denver program is modeled after the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) in Eugene, Oregon. White Bird Clinic, a health care center in the city, launched the program as a community policing initiative in 1989.

Like the Denver program, CAHOOTS responds to a range of mental health-related crises and relies on techniques that are focused on harm reduction. With a budget of about $2.1 million annually, CAHOOTS answered 17% of the Eugene Police Department's overall call volume in 2017, according to the program.

In 2019, Cervantes traveled with a group from Denver to Eugene to study the CAHOOTS model. Cervantes said his organization, the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, is working with about ten other cities in Colorado to draft co-responder models. Aurora – where 23-year-old Elijah McClain died after officers stopped him on the street in 2019 – is expected to launch its pilot in about a month, Cervantes said.

Jan. 15:Family of man fatally shot by Texas officer responding to mental health call want arrest

On the East Coast, New York City announced plans in November to launch a similar pilot program in two neighborhoods.

For the coming year, Denver has allocated $1.4 million in the city's budget to continue the STAR program, according to the report. The funding would be enough to purchase four additional vans and fund six new two-person teams, as well as a full-time supervisor, the report said. The program is also transitioning from the city's safety department to its public health department.

Cervantes said that, as the program goes forward, he hopes to see more complete data on who the program is serving. Current data does not list race or ethnicity for a third of people served by the program, Cervantes said.

"That's something that surprises me," Cervantes said. "How do we really understand the impact of the most marginalized communities in Denver if we don’t have the data there?"

Cervantes said the STAR program set out to connect residents in crisis with social services in the city, as well as identify the gaps in many of the services. When the coronavirus pandemic shut down many of the existing services, it made STAR's task more difficult.

"With COVID, some of the services that would typically be available weren’t quite in full service. That’s something the STAR program had to adapt to," he said.

The STAR program is organized through a coalition of city agencies and organizations, including the Denver Police Department, Denver Health Paramedic Division, Denver 911, the Caring for Denver Foundation, the Mental Health Center of Denver and community supporters.

Sounds good. Hopefully with police not responding to calls they are ill equipped to deal with they can focus on cases where they are actually needed. This along with body cams and massive overhauls in various internal structures (seriously the PG county think I linked to pointed to massive flaws) will hopefully reduce excessive use of force. Though I think that the investigations should not be done internally.

[Galloism]

I feel like the attention given to Rittenhouse has been disproportionate, but since there's various reasons for that, I'm feeding the beast with this video:

Kyle Rittenhouse Shooting: He's Not the Problem. A Legal Analysis.

It's an interesting perspective, looking a bit wider than just the specific case, and explaining a bit more about the place this case holds in the criminal justice system. That's a perspective which is more interesting to me. Here's her first video, which she references. The older video goes more directly into the case, but I didn't like as much because I felt it was too superficial.

Sorry I had to wait to get home to watch your link. I have now done so.

This video was much better than the first one (I had seen it already). I also like what she said about the grand jury and how the fact many states allow the prosecutor to skip it is a travesty (including Wisconsin).

I also liked her pointing out that most of the people mad at Kyle aren’t mad at Kyle, but at the unjust system. They want the system to punish Kyle not because he’s some monster, she pointed out how that’s not true, but he’s become a symbol of the injustice of the system. Essentially, they are being placated by the system by the system publicly being as unjust towards him as it has been against many young black teens throughout the years.

It’s a deflection strategy. If they crucify Rittenhouse to placate the crowd, they don’t have to actually do anything about what the crowd is angry about.

I thought that was very insightful.

[Nakena]

Denver tried a special mental health unit instead of police

Another US city is reporting early success with a program that replaces traditional law enforcement responders with health care workers for some emergency calls.

Previously, Denver 911 operators only directed calls to police or fire department first responders. But the Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) pilot program created a third track for directing emergency calls to a two-person team: a medic and a clinician, staffed in a van from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays.

The STAR program, which launched in June, reported promising results in its six-month progress report. The program aims to provide a "person-centric mobile crisis response" to community members who are experiencing problems related to mental health, depression, poverty, homelessness, or substance abuse issues.

Denver is among several U.S. cities working to develop an alternative emergency responder model for people who are experiencing mental health crises, as police officers fatally shoot hundreds of people experiencing mental health crises every year, according to a Washington Post database of fatal shootings by on-duty police officers. Since 2015, police have fatally shot nearly 1,400 people with mental illnesses, according to the database.


Over the first six months of the pilot, Denver received more than 2,500 emergency calls that fell into the STAR program's purview, and the STAR team was able to respond to 748 calls. No calls required the assistance of police, and no one was arrested.

Denver police responded to nearly 95,000 incidents over the same period, suggesting that an expanded STAR program could reduce police calls by nearly 3%, according to the report.

"Overall, the first six months has kind of been a proof of concept of what we wanted," said Vinnie Cervantes, a member of Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, one of the organizations involved with the STAR program. "We've continued to try to work to make it something that is truly a community-city partnership." Data collected during the pilot program found that STAR calls were focused in certain areas of the city, and most were calls for trespassing and welfare checks. Approximately 68% of people contacted were experiencing homelessness, and there were mental health concerns in 61% of cases – largely schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder – with 33% of people having co-occurring conditions, according to the report.


Carleigh Sailon, a social worker with the Mental Health Center of Denver who works out of the STAR van, said she takes a "non-judgmental, client-centered, supportive" approach to assisting people in crisis.

"The intent of STAR is to send the right response, not a one-size fit all response. People call 911 for an array of reasons and it’s not always something that involves risk or a criminal element," Sailon said in a statement. "If the STAR van can handle someone in crisis and that frees up police to handle a robbery or domestic violence call, then that’s an incredible success."

The report comes on the heels of a year that saw thousands of protests nationwide in response to the killings of several Black men and women, as well as a series of high-profile police killings of people experiencing mental health crises, including Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York, and Walter Wallace, Jr. in Philadelphia. Many protesters called on their local governments to redirect funding away from police departments.

In recent years, some police departments, such as in Los Angeles and San Antonio, have partnered with mental health professionals to work as "co-responders," assisting street cops responding to incidents involving a mental health crisis. In the wake of Breonna Taylor's killing in Louisville last year, the city increased its police budget and put money toward exploring co-responder models. And Chicago is expected to begin piloting a co-responder program this year.

But other cities rely on emergency response models that do not involve police. The Denver program is modeled after the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) in Eugene, Oregon. White Bird Clinic, a health care center in the city, launched the program as a community policing initiative in 1989.

Like the Denver program, CAHOOTS responds to a range of mental health-related crises and relies on techniques that are focused on harm reduction. With a budget of about $2.1 million annually, CAHOOTS answered 17% of the Eugene Police Department's overall call volume in 2017, according to the program.

In 2019, Cervantes traveled with a group from Denver to Eugene to study the CAHOOTS model. Cervantes said his organization, the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, is working with about ten other cities in Colorado to draft co-responder models. Aurora – where 23-year-old Elijah McClain died after officers stopped him on the street in 2019 – is expected to launch its pilot in about a month, Cervantes said.

Jan. 15:Family of man fatally shot by Texas officer responding to mental health call want arrest

On the East Coast, New York City announced plans in November to launch a similar pilot program in two neighborhoods.

For the coming year, Denver has allocated $1.4 million in the city's budget to continue the STAR program, according to the report. The funding would be enough to purchase four additional vans and fund six new two-person teams, as well as a full-time supervisor, the report said. The program is also transitioning from the city's safety department to its public health department.

Cervantes said that, as the program goes forward, he hopes to see more complete data on who the program is serving. Current data does not list race or ethnicity for a third of people served by the program, Cervantes said.

"That's something that surprises me," Cervantes said. "How do we really understand the impact of the most marginalized communities in Denver if we don’t have the data there?"

Cervantes said the STAR program set out to connect residents in crisis with social services in the city, as well as identify the gaps in many of the services. When the coronavirus pandemic shut down many of the existing services, it made STAR's task more difficult.

"With COVID, some of the services that would typically be available weren’t quite in full service. That’s something the STAR program had to adapt to," he said.

The STAR program is organized through a coalition of city agencies and organizations, including the Denver Police Department, Denver Health Paramedic Division, Denver 911, the Caring for Denver Foundation, the Mental Health Center of Denver and community supporters.

Thats a fundamentally good idea and program.