San Jose mayor asks for new officers for specialized mental health response unit

SAN JOSE, Calif. – San Jose city leaders are looking to make long term a program which teams up mental health experts with police officers.  The unit tries to deescalate what can be tense interactions and can end result in much better results for individuals who need the support.

When law enforcement get called out in cases involving mental wellbeing – especially in situation that could be harmful or violent — it is just not just a swift reaction that issues but also how that response unfolds. 

“We know when responding to somebody with a mental health and fitness episode out on the street it can go extremely incorrect incredibly quick if we do not consider the correct solution,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo claimed on Monday. 

That is why Liccardo, in his remaining finances concept to the San Jose Town Council, desires to make long-lasting a system where San Jose police officers operate inside of a particular unit identified as MCAT or the Cellular Disaster Evaluation Staff.

“Acquiring a caring expert, who can we hope really noticeably deescalate the circumstance, can be so essential to making certain a secure result,” Liccardo reported. 

The MCAT officers undertake specialised education and also wear uniforms which are various than regular road officers. 

The partnership involving SJPD, and Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Products and services, was originally started in October of 2020 less than a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.  

The grant funding is now functioning out so the mayor is calling for the council to approve four new, long term, police officer positions to workers the workforce and grow the range of hrs and times they operate. 

“It is so critically important to have that very first human being who reaches somebody who is having a mental well being episode to be a person who does not look threatening, a person who is not carrying a gun, and any individual who does not have a badge and a uniform. That can definitely enable to deescalate the problem,” Liccardo reported.

Sandra Hernandez, a licensed social employee, is the division director for Entry and Disaster Products and services at the Santa Clara County Behavioral Expert services Section.  

She claims the partnership product has been thriving.  

“We enable that be known we are not here to arrest you we are in this article to assist you.  We want to assistance you, we want to assist you through whichever disaster is that you are likely by means of and we want to look for strategies to divert you to something that will make perception to you to sense superior,” Hernandez claimed. 

The mayor’s final price range information will have a public listening to at San Jose Metropolis Hall Monday at 6 p.m. and will arrive up for a remaining vote at Tuesday’s normal city council assembly.