![]() “If he needs some help, it would be good to be able to call MACRO, and they could deescalate without running him down to John George and then release him back out on the street without really solving the problem.” For example, say “there’s a guy out here screaming on my street,” she said. She told The Oaklandside that many 911 calls for mild disturbances, disputes, or mental-health crises would be best suited for a MACRO response. “Even the police will admit that there are some calls they don’t need or want to respond to.” “For once, the community will have a top-down belief that the community can solve its own problems,” said Cathy Leonard, a member of the Coalition for Police Accountability. In June 2020, as Oakland and other cities were erupting in pain and protests after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the feasibility study was released and the council set aside $1.35 million to launch a MACRO pilot in parts of Oakland. Members of Eugene’s CAHOOTS team came down to Oakland to present to city staff and organizers in the spring of 2019, prompting the City Council to fund a study determining how a similar program might work in Oakland, as proposed by Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan. ![]() Shortly after that meeting, the Coalition for Police Accountability, an Oakland advocacy group that pushes for police oversight and transparency, urged the city to launch a program similar to one in Eugene, Oregon, called CAHOOTS, where medics and mental-health workers respond to many non-violent 911 calls. In Oakland in early 2019, the civilian-led Police Commission held a meeting on policing and homelessness in the city, where unhoused residents and advocates said counselors and paramedics would be better positioned to deescalate many crises and non-violent incidents that too often end in tense or violent police confrontations. MACRO emerged from a movement calling on cities to invest in alternatives to law enforcement, in light of high-profile police killings and violence across the U.S. MACRO supporters say police shouldn’t respond to all emergencies “I always have felt that ultimately this should become an in-house agency, with regular city employees running this,” said District 1 Coucilmember Dan Kalb, echoing many others who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting to say that move would commit Oakland to permanently reshaping its 911 dispatch system, through a department-the Oakland Fire Department-that’s well-known and respected throughout the city, and already set up to operate a 24-hour program.Ĭity Administrator Ed Reiskin, however, warned before the vote that the pilot could get underway faster if contracted out to another organization. On the same day, the Administration provided an Informational Memo to the Mayor and City Council based on the Madirection, and a subsequent informational memo was issued in April 2021.Councilmembers also expressed a desire to have the fire department continue running MACRO after the initial pilot period, seemingly putting to rest a discussion that exploded in recent weeks about whether the emergency-response effort should be operated by the city or by a private contractor. The Council subsequently adopted a Resolution No. ![]() The Oakland City Council determined during the MaCity Council meeting that the City should house the 18-month pilot of the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) program within the Fire Department. This work resulted in a recommendation for a pilot program in two geographic areas of Oakland. With the support of the Urban Strategies Council (USC), several stakeholder groups and community members, including people in Oakland’s most impacted communities, engaged in nine months of analysis to determine the best pathway forward. In 2019, City Council allocated $40,000 to research the feasibility of launching a program in Oakland modeled after Eugene Oregon Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) model, widely recognized as a non-law enforcement mobile crisis intervention that has seen significant success since its inception 31 years ago.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |