NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The Metro Nashville Police department has been putting a bigger emphasis on mental health.
Last year, they launched the pilot program “Partners in Care” with Mental Health Cooperative to have a behavioral health clinician at several precincts to respond to calls with them.
The program is being utilized at the North, Hermitage, and Central precincts. Metro Council recently passed a resolution to keep the program going and expand it through grant money.
“We pair a master level clinical health technician with an officer on each of those details,” Lt. Anthony Brooks said.
Officers and clinicians go through hours of training and work as a duo, Monday through Friday.
They respond to calls when people are having a mental health crisis.
In the past, there was a delay in care.
“Historically police officers — when thinking about helping people — was taking the criminal off the street so that it helps the city. That way it would make it safe,” Lt. Brooks said.
Police do treat each case differently, like when officers shot and killed Landon Eastepon Interstate 65 in January when he was armed with a box cutter. No officers are being charged in his death as of a decision from the Davidson County District Attorney.
In this case, Eastep was having a mental health crisis, and mental health professionals were not called in.
At the time, MNPD said six of their officers had the training to handle this type of crisis.
There’s also another case in 2021 when officers responded to a call where an unhoused man was having a mental health crisis.
A police negotiator and SWAT officers were requested, and an hour later, a mobile crisis staff from the Mental Health Co-Op arrived.
“If an individual is experiencing a behavioral crisis the longer the delay goes without them getting care you increase the likelihood of increased agitation. You increase the likelihood of losing hope and motivation of getting care,” said Amanda Bracht, Mental Health Cooperative’s senior VP of public relations and community development
The “Partners in Care” program gets rid of that delay.
“Since the program launched, we’ve had over 1,700 contacts with individuals that are in some sort of behavioral crisis, and we’re showing a very low arrest rate of about 4% with all those contacts,” Lt. Brooks shared.
They’re expanding the program to the south precinct in November.
The new grant money council approved will allow them to hire more clinicians and launch the program at a fifth precinct in May.
