On today’s show we sit down with 33rd Ward Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez to discuss her efforts to get Chicago to implement true crisis response that doesn’t involve the Chicago Police Department. While focusing mainly on her ordinance we also get a little politics in given it is the season as Chicago’s elections will be held in just a few weeks.

In response to protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd cities around the country started to test out and implement a form of crisis response to 911 calls that doesn’t involve sending uniformed officers with guns to the scene. The idea is that the mere presence of the badge and gun escalates the situation. It also takes in to account that officers are not trained nor equipped to properly deal with people in mental health crisis or who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol but haven’t yet become violence.

Chicago under Mayor Lightfoot did indeed create a few pilot programs in a couple of districts Mayor Lightfoot demanded that those pilots include an officer among the responders. This is something our guest and the three decades of evidence in Eugene, OR shows that is not the way to do it. Crisis response is not something new to the US. The CAHOOTS crisis response program has been active since 1988. CAHOOTS has demonstrated that crisis response can be successful over three decades it is just that Mayor Lightfoot either decided to ignore the evidence or just thought she knew better than everyone else. This is a common issue with people who always think they are the smartest person in the room.

Alderwoman Rodriguez Sanchez has introduced an ordinance called Treatment not Trauma that focuses on crisis response. We will be talking in-depth about the ordinance and Mayor Lightfoot’s response.