COUNTY GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SAFETY

Marion County to revive police crisis response team it disbanded in March

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Marion County officials are re-starting a crisis response team that includes law enforcement officers after stopping the service earlier this year.

The Marion County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved a $550,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to bring back a team that pairs a mental health worker with a Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputy to respond to behavioral health crises.

The county has run four such teams in recent years – one with the sheriff’s office, two with the Salem Police Department and one with the Woodburn Police Department. But those teams were disbanded at the end of March as public agencies shifted away from funding crisis teams that include police, instead preferring an approach led by mental health experts.

The change prompted the county to create a new team in January that replaced officers with addiction recovery mentors, according to Ryan Matthews, Marion County’s Health And Human Services administrator. That civilian team recently expanded to operate 24 hours a day.

READ: The contract

WATCH: The Dec. 11 Board of Commissioners meeting

The focus of both teams has been to de-escalate people experiencing a mental health crisis. 

Matthews said the police team will meet an unmet need in the Salem area by responding to situations where a person in crisis is making others feel unsafe “but no formal crime has been committed.”

The existing civilian teams “do a great job,” Matthews said at the meeting Wednesday. “But there are a subset of those calls and those needs where you really need law enforcement to work alongside you. You cannot expect behavioral health professionals to go into an unknown environment dealing with somebody that they have no relationship with where it might be potentially unsafe,” he said. “It becomes kind of this gray area where there needs to be a health response, but there also needs to be that law enforcement component with them, and that’s the gap that we’ve lost since these four mobile crisis teams have gone away.”

Matthews said the county is recruiting a mental health professional for the police team. He expects the crew to be on the streets as early as February, likely operating four days a week in 10-hour shifts.

He told Salem Reporter that Marion County officials have always supported the police model as an effective way to respond to behavioral health crises.

“However, our ability to implement programs is largely shaped by the funding we receive. This new grant provides an opportunity to offer this level of support again, albeit in a more limited capacity,” he said in an email.

The federal funding will pay for the new team’s operations through September 2027, with the county required to match 20% of the grant, according to the award letter.

With both teams in place, Matthews said at the meeting that the county can collect data and identify gaps in either the law enforcement or civilian model. That will also help county officials seek future funding for the law enforcement program through the state Legislature and Oregon Health Authority, or again through a federal grant, he said.

Matthews told Salem Reporter that dispatchers will assign the team to respond to calls, with a deputy and a mental health professional arriving in a sheriff’s office vehicle.

“We’ll make sure that people are aware of when to call this team out,” he said at the meeting Wednesday.

After the previous teams were disbanded, the sheriff’s office reassigned its participating deputy to patrol, according to agency spokesman Sgt. Jeremy Schwab.

Salem police spokeswoman Angela Hedrick said the department at the time redirected its officers on the team to the Field Operations Division, which includes its patrol, SWAT and traffic teams. The federal money is not bringing back the Salem police team.

The previous team was in place for 10 years. It responded to calls between 8 a.m. and midnight, as opposed to the 24/7 response for the current civilian team.

People can contact the civilian team by calling 988, a national mental health crisis and suicide hotline, by calling the Behavioral Health Crisis Center, a 24-7 facility, or through service providers like Northwest Human Services who call to get help for someone.

County data shows that the civilian crews have resolved nearly all incidents they’ve been called to without the help of law enforcement officers. But in the first six months since the sheriff’s office team disbanded, they only received 90 calls as of mid-October. The sheriff’s office team received six times that number — 554 calls — during the same period last year.

The program has had a slow rollout, according to Debbie Wells, director of the Marion County’s Behavioral Health Crisis Services Division. 

She recently told Salem Reporter that’s partly due to low awareness, since many people aren’t aware of the 988 hotline or don’t understand what services it provides. 

County officials are making efforts to raise awareness about the hotline, such as giving out 988 cards at school events and community gatherings, posting regularly on social media, and sharing information with service organizations, sports teams and businesses, Wendy Zieker, director of the county’s Public Health Division, said in October.

The county also recently added the crisis center as a place people can call to contact the teams.

RELATED COVERAGE:

New Marion County team resolving crisis calls, but numbers remain low

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Marion County to create mobile crisis teams separate from police

UPDATED: Salem City Council wants funding identified for mobile crisis response

Salem, United Way halt plans for mental health crisis responder program

Salem leaders want civilians, not police, to respond to personal crises. They just have to find a way to pay for it

Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.

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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.