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Lubbock crisis negotiator says 20-person victim services unit now handles more suicides, homicides and traffic fatalities
Summary
Andy Young, a crisis negotiator with the SWAT team, described a victim services unit of about 20 trained mental health professionals that accompanies officers to serious incidents and said the unit may expand as the city grows.
Andy Young said he is a crisis negotiator with the SWAT team and oversees a victim services unit that responds to people in crisis in Lubbock, and that the unit includes about 20 trained mental health professionals who accompany officers to suicides, homicides and traffic fatalities.
Young said the unit began with him and a handful of responders and has grown to include roughly 20 clinicians, social workers and graduate counseling students who “patrol the city just like any other officer with a radio.” He said early calls were primarily domestic violence, but “that has dramatically shifted over the years.”
The unit’s role, Young said, is to provide a calm, empathetic presence for people who have experienced criminal violence or are in acute crisis. “We usually get called to the calls that are a little bit more brutal, suicides and homicides and traffic fatalities,” he said. He described arriving on-scene after officers give a brief and indicated the victim services member typically makes contact with the person in crisis.
Young told the meeting that a turning point for the program came after a lengthy SWAT callout in 02/2003 that lasted about 15 hours. He said that experience and others underscored the value of having clinicians familiar with police work: “Being familiar, not only with the officer, but with the job, I think, started to open that door.”
On staffing and future plans, Young said current call volume aligns with the unit’s staffing but that growth in Lubbock could require hiring full-time personnel. “My hope is to get some more full time people in place as the need grows, and I'm not quite sure when we'll hit that tipping point,” he said. He did not specify a timeline or funding source for adding full-time positions.
The presentation described training and backgrounds for unit members — from social work to child protective services to graduate counseling students — and emphasized coordination with patrol officers. There were no formal motions or votes recorded in the transcript related to staffing or budget for the unit.
Looking ahead, Young said the unit will continue to respond alongside officers to high-grief incidents and that further expansion will depend on demand and available resources.
