Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Mental Health Response topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Police outline expanded care team, cite higher reported mental‑health calls and regional gaps in inpatient beds
Summary
Chief Couch briefed City Council on the Police Department’s expanded mental‑health response: two full‑time care‑team positions, 20 crisis‑intervention officers, stronger tracking that raised incident counts to about 1,300 per year, partnerships with MHMR and area hospitals, and limits caused by lack of a local inpatient psychiatric bed.
Police Chief Couch told the College Station City Council on Jan. 8 that the department has expanded its crisis response with two full‑time care‑team positions and a 20‑member crisis intervention team, and that better tracking explains a recent rise in recorded mental‑health incidents.
“Prior to going full time in ’24…we had an average of about 700,” Couch said, adding that after hiring full‑time staff and improving report coding the department is now “seeing…about 1,300 per year” of incidents identified as involving a mental‑health consumer. He said the care team now carries caseloads, conducts proactive outreach and reads every report to reduce missed cases.
Couch described the unit’s training and partnerships: patrol officers receive a baseline of mental‑health training, several team members hold Texas mental‑health peace officer certificates, and the department co‑locates an MHMR counselor adjacent to the care‑team office to speed referrals. He said the department averages about 140 self‑reported requests for help annually, roughly 120 incidents involving substances and about 140 injury‑from‑self‑harm incidents over the last three years; use of force is rare, averaging “about 8” incidents over the past three years.
Council members pressed for local capacity to hold and treat people placed on protective emergency custody (POEC). Chief Couch said the region lacks a consistently available local inpatient psychiatric bed and that many POEC transports go to facilities outside Brazos County; he noted the sheriff usually handles those transports.
Council members and the mayor praised the department’s investment in training and partnership work and asked staff to pursue broader community conversations about mental‑health resources and possible regional solutions. A resident who had experienced crisis, Valen Cipek, told the council that trained officers’ responses had been decisive in his experience: “these are real people” behind the statistics, he said.
The department noted ongoing grant activity to sustain the care‑team positions and that the city budget includes local funding should grants lapse. Council directed staff to follow up with a citywide discussion on mental‑health services and to explore related options such as information about the county’s mental‑health court.
The workshop briefing yielded no formal council action but set direction for future study and interagency coordination.
