Hunter
02/03/21
The Iowa City City Council is moving forward with a new crisis response model inside the police department, over the objections of the group Iowa Freedom Riders.
The plan, discussed at Tuesday night’s meeting, is to create a new law enforcement liaison position, per an agreement with the City, Foundation 2, and the Community Crisis Center and Food Bank. The liaison would be an employee of CommUnity, and would work with the ICPD on responses for mental health crisis calls.
City Manager Geoff Fruin explained that the priority remains to divert as many calls as possible to an outside agency, but the partnership will be prepared to deal with the calls where a civilian team cannot or should not respond alone.
The partners agree that for the model to work, dispatch services throughout the county will need to be trained how and when to divert calls for service.
The Freedom Riders who were part of the meeting Tuesday night decried the decision, saying that both their group and the public rejected the co-responder model, calling for response teams that don’t involve police.
Councilmember John Thomas, the only dissenting vote on the plan, wanted more discussion on the program before it was approved, but other members called the plan a good first step that can be re-evaluated after it’s been in place for a year or so.