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Resident thanks council for Crisis Aid Response Team, urges continuation
Summary
Local resident Jack Brown thanked the council for implementing a Crisis Aid Response Team that pairs an officer with an EMT and a mental-health clinician, cited roughly 300 calls and urged the council to continue supporting the program.
Wichita Falls — During the public-comment period on Jan. 21, resident and columnist Jack Brown thanked the council for the Crisis Aid Response Team and urged city leaders to continue the program.
Brown described helping a friend and learning of a family member's suicide attempt. He said the Crisis Aid Response Team responds to behavioral-health calls with a clinician and an EMT alongside a single officer rather than a larger police response, and that the program has handled roughly 300 calls, with two cases requiring urgent intervention and two callers found to have outstanding warrants.
"We have set a crisis aid response team in our community to where you don't respond with a bunch of police officers and the hands on their gun. You respond with 1 and an EMT and a mental health clinician," Jack Brown said, and thanked city leadership for letting the program move forward.
Council members acknowledged the remarks and thanked program leadership; Brown asked the council to sustain support given the program's impact on people in crisis.
