The London Police Services Board (LPSB) has voted in favour of creating a crisis outreach and support team to minimize police use of force during mental health calls on Thursday.
The motion from Police Chief Steve Williams would see four specialized officers team up with local mental health workers to respond to some of the hundreds of mental health calls police deal with every month.
“We have said for quite some time that police alone should not be the first responder to these crisis calls,” Williams said.
This move is a big step forward in the LPS addressing Black Lives Matter London’s call to “defund the police.” The group has been calling for the reallocation of police funds to better address issues like mental health and homeless prevention.
“Armed police officers are not the best response team for traffic stops, mental health calls, substance abuse issues, drug overdoses and more,” said Black Lives Matter London member Gal Harper at an Aug. 29 protest.
Harper said the group would like to see the funds used in situations like those calls reinvested back into the community.
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The board will now be relocating $500,000 from the LPS Operating Budget to fund the Crisis Outreach and Support Team (COAST) — which Williams hopes to launch in the new year.
Williams said after one year of the program being in operation, LPS will reevaluate how it’s going and look at any tweaks or a possible expansion.
LPS responded to 3,600 mental health crisis call annually, apprehending 752 people and spending about 8.16 hours per call.
“The end goal here is to reduce the impact on our service, but really it’s to offer better short- and long-term incomes for those that need assistance,” Williams said.
This decision comes on the same day the province’s police watchdog cleared London, Ont., police officers in the falling death of a 27-year-old, Caleb Tubila Njoko in May.
Caleb Tubila Njoko died in hospital three days after falling from a balcony at his mother’s Walnut Street apartment building during an interaction with officers on May 5.
In an interview with Global News about the SIU’s decision, Nelly Wendo, Njoko’s mother said, “I called the ambulance to take my son back to the hospital for the doctor to check my son’s mental problems. … I did not call for them to take him in jail.”
Wendo said the police presence scared her son and she did not understand why officers were the ones sent to help with a mental health crisis.
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