St. Pete Police Add Community Program To Handle Non-Violent Calls

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A new division within the St. Petersburg Police Department will handle the thousands of calls received each year to handle calls about people who are impaired, in a mental health crisis, or neighborhood disputes. Mayor Rick Kriseman and Chief Anthony Holloway announced on July 9 that a new division called Community Assistance Liaison has been created within the St. Pete Police Department, a police news release said.

The new program is a social service agency that responds to non-violent calls for service from the public. Police said beginning Oct. 1, instead of sending a police officer, a CAL team member will respond to the following issues:

• Disorderly intoxication
• Drug overdose
• Intoxicated person
• Mental health crisis
• Suicide crisis
• Mental health transport
• Disorderly juvenile/truancy
• Disorderly juvenile at elementary schools
• Panhandling
• Homeless complaints
• Neighborhood dispute

In 2019, St. Pete police said they responded to about 12,700 calls for service on the above issues (out of a total of 259,800 calls for service). This new division will take over these types of calls rather than moving forward with a previous commitment to add 25 new officers over the next two years.

The city will use federal grant money of $3,125,000 that was initially going to be used for adding 25 news officers to pay for this new service. The department will monitor calls related to these issues for one year to determine whether this approach has been successful or whether officers were still required to respond to these issues in addition to the CAL team member.

Police said a police officer will always be dispatched to violent or life-threatening situations.

Holloway said in addition to the new division, they are increasing training that includes:

• Increase de-escalation training from the current one time a year, to two times a year formal training and informal training with simulator
• Increase self-defense tactics training from the current one time a year to two times a year so that officers have more options than reaching for weapons
• Fair & impartial policing training for civilian employees of the police department (sworn officers already receive this training annually.)
• Additional training for recruits. Recruits already receive cultural competency training with community members. They will also have to return after a year for additional training on cultural competency.
• Add a civilian to their hiring board. The civilian will come from NAACP, Urban League, Faith Leaders and Leadership St. Petersburg.
• Park, Walk, and Talks (when officers park their patrol cars and walk the areas they patrol to get to know the people they serve) will go from 1 hour per week, to 2 hours per.
• Comprehensive review to look for ways to improve: Use of Force policy, how complaints are processed, who they are arresting and why and monitor calls that are based on race only.