PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Since the October police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. in West Philadelphia, elected officials are taking a new look at how officers respond to calls involving people with disabilities, including mental health issues.
A City Council joint committee hearing last week took testimony from Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and Behavioral Health Commissioner Jill Bowen on their efforts to screen 911 calls for situations that may require a dual response of police and another type of professional.
Right now, a clinician is in the call center for one shift to guide the decision, but Bowen says the plan is to expand to 24-7.
"There is an absolute sense of urgency, not just with the 911 embedding but with the shift in approach to calls coming in to 911," said Bowen.
Added Outlaw, "We need to take a very serious look at the types of calls to which we respond and whether a sworn police officer is the most appropriate to do that."
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The commissioner said she's fully behind co-responding but she wanted to be clear about what that means.
"I don't want people to think, when we have these co-responder models, that the police won't have to come at all. If there's a weapon involved, we're still going to have to come anyway," she said.
Even as the committees met, Sen. Bob Casey was announcing plans to introduce two bills in the U.S. Senate that he said could reduce violence in police interaction with the disabled.
One would provide training grants for better outcomes. The other would divert certain calls from 911 to a separate 211 system, that would respond with supportive services rather than law enforcement.