Milwaukee Common Council Voted Unanimously to Create an Unarmed First Responder Program

The Milwaukee Common Council voted to adopt an unarmed first responder program in lieu of police presence for issues that do not traditionally require force, but the program is not close to being rolled out. 

Alderwoman Chantia Lewis authored the legislation and was co-sponsored by Alderman Nik Kovak and Alderwoman Milele A. Coggs. It is designed to help those who suffer from mental illness, substance abuse, or are homeless with trained mental health professionals with extensive de-escalation training to assist in a call without the threat of violence. Currently they are working with the Milwaukee Police Department and the Milwaukee Health Department to gauge the most effective size the force.

“What we have been doing clearly isn’t working and has bogged down police officers on calls involving people in crises, and we need a different approach to responding to the situations where individuals are clearly in desperate need of help that shouldn’t involve law enforcement, said Lewis in a press brief.

Kovak spoke at the committee hearing about the police’s ability to do their jobs and the resources that are available to them despite an increased budget. He referenced the initiative to include mental health training for police after the shooting and death of Dontre Hamilton who was mentally ill and shot by police.  

“Sure, we now have mandated mental health training, in the wake of the murder of Dontre Hamilton, and that’s better than not having mental health training,” he said. “But a police officer with some mental health training is not the same as a mental health expert.”

The press release mentioned a similar program they wish to model the unarmed first responder program after that has been in place in Eugene, Ore. for about 30 years. Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets, or CAHOOTS, is staffed and run by White Bird Clinic and is funded by the city. The unarmed first responder program has not determined if the city will provide the workers or if they will outsource to a private clinic.

CAHOOTS claim to have saved their police department, “roughly $14 million in emergency medical assistance costs, including ambulance transport and emergency room services.”

CAHOOTS reported the most common calls are public assistance calls, welfare checks and transportation. In 2020 the city of Eugene increased the CAHOOTS contract by $281,000 to cover the increase in popularity of the service.

Kovak stated that there is more research to be done before anything is made widely available to the public.

“We can’t just wave a magic wand and say, we’d like a different kind of emergency response, we have to build up the capacity and the infrastructure and invest in it,” he said. “But before you do all that you have to know what the challenges are, what it’s going to cost and how to do it.”

After voting to move forward with the program they are currently collecting data from the Milwaukee Police Department about the nature of their calls, and establishing criteria that would warrant an unarmed first responder rather than a police officer. Types of calls they may respond to are those of mental health and crisis, homelessness, reported drug use, and some domestic disputes.

“Too often the police have been called to do everything, when really there are trained professionals that could potentially handle some situations that are not about violence,” said Coggs.