There are a lot of questions to be asked and answered about the City of Lynn’s plan to create the All Lynn Emergency Response Team (ALERT). The $500,000 City Council commitment to fund ALERT is part of the city’s response to the national outcry over George Floyd’s May 2020 murder by a Minnesota police officer.
ALERT is intended to provide an unarmed response to mental-health crisis calls, overdoses and wellness checks currently handled by uniformed, armed police officers.
Community organizations supporting ALERT’s formation point to communities in Oregon, Colorado and other parts of the country where unarmed response teams saved cities and towns money by freeing police up from having to respond to mental health and wellness check calls.
ALERT proponents point to Floyd’s death when they argue that America is overdue for unarmed and well-trained mental health and social work specialists to respond to nonviolent calls involving individuals of color.
They argue that a responder who is not armed or wearing a uniform can deescalate a situation and connect someone in crisis with mental health workers who can direct them to resources and treatment.
But what happens if a situation escalates or the individual in crisis becomes violent? When police respond to a call, they are prepared to help and protect everyone present at the site of the response call — family members, bystanders — by bringing a uniformed authority to the response.
Will ALERT members be capable of safely responding to a situation involving several agitated and upset, or traumatized and impaired individuals?
If interactions between individuals of color and uniformed officers lead to conflicts, then shouldn’t a concentrated and sustained effort be directed at addressing the root causes of these conflicts and finding ways to deescalate them?
Other questions surrounding ALERT’s formation include: Who will oversee and run the unarmed response team and how will the team be alerted to calls?
Police officers are hired and trained to keep people safe. Floyd’s murder and the murders of other persons of color by police officers have raised a multitude of questions about the individuals selected to wear uniforms and badges and carry firearms and raised questions about how they are trained.
It is important to focus on the root problems undermining policing in America which have surfaced in the wake of Floyd’s death. It is equally important to ask if unarmed response is the safest and best way to help people.