RICHMOND, Va. — It's been nearly five years since Richmond teacher Marcus David-Peters waskilled by police along Interstate 95 when he charged at an officer while experiencing a mental health crisis.
At the Richmond City Council's public safety committee hearing Tuesday afternoon, the topic of how much law enforcement should be involved in those kinds of health emergencies will be front and center.
The Marcus Bill was signed into law in 2020, and Dr. John Lindstrom, CEO of the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority (RBHA), said 911 calls can now be linked to 988 — the suicide and crisis lifeline — when the situation doesn’t require a first responder response.
Dispatchers are trained to cue in to the call and make a determination whether to send law enforcement or a crisis response team or connect the person to 988.
According to Lindstrom, this is incredibly important because they don’t want people to be afraid to call for help.
"A large part of them, they avoid it because there is the fear that you know what's going to happen if will the police come," explained Lindstrom. "Will I get forced to go to a hospital? Might I get arrested? Could I would I have handcuffs put on me? What we're trying to do is take an approach that reduces the worry about that and allows people to have more confidence and trust in the fact that they will get informed help in the process."
Richmond rolled out their response to the Marcus Alert in July 2021. Since then, RBHA has established two, full-time community response teams.
Those teams are made up of an RBHA behavior professional and a RPD officer. The officer doesn't wear a uniform and travels in a non-emergency vehicle.
The two teams work 40 hours a week, and they stagger days. Mondays and Fridays, there is one team covering a 10-hour shift.
But Lindstrom said, ideally, they would need another three or four teams to have 24/7 coverage in the city. That would require additional funding from council.
"If we were to consider having multiple teams available at any given time, during, you know, high-volume time periods, we would need some more," Lindstrom explained.
RBHA said one of their biggest challenges right now has been finding employees to staff the groups they want and also need. Right now, the organization said 18% to 20% of jobs are unfilled.
Lindstrom believes fully staffing additional community response reams would be an important investment to Richmonders' health.
Recent statistics show from August through December 2022, RBHA's community response teams responded to 227 calls.
Of those calls, only two resulted in an arrest, which was required because of the type of domestic calls they were, and no calls resulted in the use of force.
RBHA said they even prevented issuing temporary detention orders or mandatory hospital stays for 91% of those calls.
Role that Marcus David-Peters' Family Played in Passing the Marcus Alert Bill
Tuesday will mark 1,715 days since Princess Blanding’s brother was shot and killed by a Richmond Police officer.
“We're pushing along. The wounds never heal,” Blanding said. “I'm thankful for the strength that my family and I have. We just keep pushing forward.”
Blanding and her family were instrumental in passing the Marcus Alert bill but said there is more work to be done.
“The officer who murdered Marcus was crisis intervention trained and one of the key elements that is missing with Marcus Alert is accountability, right?” Blanding described.
She also has concerns that localities with lower population sizes can opt-out.
“It is not supposed to be statewide until July 1 of 2028. That is problematic because the mental health crisis does not wait,” Blanding stated.
Blanding said she heard of a successful interaction between the Community Response Team and a friend who needed their help.
“Her experience was pretty good, and I trust what she says. She said that the people who did come out did respond with care," she said. "We just need that to be the case and we need that to be consistent."
