Unarmed emergency responders Nevada Sanchez and Sean Martin take a police dispatch call in southeast Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city with high rates of violent crime and police shootings.
They have no enforcement powers or protective equipment and say they use their voices and brains to deescalate encounters with people in mental health and substance abuse crises.
On some occasions they may have saved lives.
…
Albuquerque, with the second highest rate of police killings among U.S. cities over 250,000 people, according to Mapping Police Violence, has set up one of the country’s most ambitious civilian responder programs to offer help rather than law enforcement to people in crisis.
Such initiatives have spread like “wildfire” across the United States since the 2020 murder of George Floyd highlighted police killings of people of color and those suffering from mental illness or substance abuse, said Alex Vitale, professor of sociology at Brooklyn College.
This is one of the things I really like about Lemmy; people having thoughtful discussions and changing their point of view with the evidence. So, kudos to you!
Thank you – yeah, it is frustrating because it’s at odds with my usual overall world view, but I’m not gonna sit here arguing against “we tried it in the real world and it definitely works better” which seems like the reality in this case.
Edit: Okay, update – I just didn’t read some important parts of the article. The ACS people work in conjunction with the police when there are weapons or other dangerous elements involved. The police like it because it frees up resources and they don’t have to go into situations they’re not well trained for, the community likes it because the ACS people deal with mental health crises better than the police, everybody wins.
LoL, was going to comment this is the first time I’ve seen this happen on Lemmy and it’s refreshing af. Nice to see this person learned something today, hopefully they share this knowledge with others.