Committee backs resolution to create Community Response Team for Roswell; forwards plan to full council

A Roswell City Council committee voted to forward to full council a resolution directing city administration to develop a Community Response Team (CRT) that would pair trained civilian crisis specialists and clinical staff with first responders to handle nonviolent behavioral-health and jail-diversion calls.

Councilor Christina Arnold, who presented the proposal, said the subcommittee had spent nearly two years studying national models and recommended a hybrid CRT housed within the Roswell Fire Department with finance involved for grant and program administration. “The purpose of the subcommittee was to advocate for a formation of a community response team,” Arnold said. She described the model as a mix of first responders and civilian crisis intervention…