Evanston City Council unanimously approved moving forward with establishing Evanston’s community response program, which is designed to work in tandem with the Evanston Police Department to respond…
Evanston City Council approved the formation of a community repsonse program to train members in de-escalation to handle low level community complaints.Evanston City Council unanimously approved moving forward with establishing Evanston’s community response program, which is designed to work in tandem with the Evanston Police Department to respond to 911 and other emergency response calls.
Those calling 911 will have their inquiry screened to determine if it fits the community response team. If the call fits the team, it will be dispatched to community responders rather than the police. Community responders will resolve these issues unless they encounter issues upon arrival at which time EPD will get involved and resolve the issue, according to the community responder integrated dispatch flowchart.
“This has been a long time coming and a lot of work has gone into this…but I have to admit it seems anticlimactic at this point,” Nieuwsma said. “Given the scope of change we’re talking about — that goes back in public discourse more than any of us have been on council — there should be more of a launch.”
The Law Enforcement Action Partnership worked with the city in determining its path toward creating the program. One of its key points was that creating the program will increase 911 calls in general, not just those intended for community response. Four community responders will be hired alongside two other cross-trained responders with a focus on community outreach. This will be one operating car unit, according to the city memo prepared by Thompson. The community response unit will operate seven days a week from 1 to 10 p.m. with cross trained officers assisting from 6 to 10 p.m.
“This is a significant milestone in a process that has been underway for years,” Biss said. “My first act as mayor was to create our Reimagining Public Safety Committee, one of whose key animating principles is that we call on our police officers to do impossibly many different things – and that the best way to provide for public safety is to ensure that whenever a problem occurs in our community, we should send the right person with the right training to solve it.
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