Detroit police offer resources as officers deal with record number of mental health calls
(CBS DETROIT) – Detroit police are seeing more people calling them during a mental health crisis.
They've broken a record so far this year. The department is taking proactive steps to point people to the right resources.
Word traveled fast of Detroit police setting up at Grand Circus Park to give away more than 200 care kits.
"We could have done it at our headquarters or another location. But this is a location that is prominent. So we wanted to meet them where they're at," Raven Alford, executive manager of the Detroit Police Department's Office of Workplace and Community Resiliency, said.
A gesture appreciated by Marquis Harten, who's been unhoused for eight months.
"I'm in the shelter. I'm trying to get my own place, just hanging in there and maintaining," Harten said.
He received one of the backpacks filled with hygiene products and tools to stay safe during the summer months.
Each care package also had a mental health resource guide stitched inside.
It comes as DPD responded to 7,860 mental-health-related calls this year compared to 6,982 at the same time last year.
"We've had hundreds of suicides in progress, I think at about 788, if my report was accurate this morning. And our save rate is 100%, which is, you know, thank God, we know we're happy with that. But it's still 788 people who wanted to attempt suicide, and where the police had to intervene," Detroit Police Chief James White said.
Back in December, Chief White beefed up the Crisis Intervention Team (C.I.T) by adding full-time C.I.T. officers to back up patrol officers who are C.I.T-trained.
"Oftentimes, our unsheltered population may have a mental health nexus, they may have substance use disorders, they may be in need of veterans assistance, and several other resources," Captain Tanya Leonard Gilbert with the Detroit Police Department's Office of Workplace and Community Resiliency, said.
And now they may know who to reach out to in their time of need.
"I thank them for doing this. We need this. If it weren't for them, we would have lost a whole lot of people around here," Harten said.