The unit consists of co-responder teams with a police officer or deputy and a clinician, the report said. It handles cases of people in crisis and aims to divert them from emergency rooms and the criminal justice system.
The unit’s clinicians are employed by Spokane-based Frontier Behavioral Health, the report said. Teams typically spend 30-45 minutes on a given call, whereas a standard police unit might spend 15, Sgt. Jay Kernkamp told The Spokesman-Review.
One percent of those contacted by the unit were arrested, while 5.5 percent were diverted from arrestable offenses or hospitals, the report said. The unit responded to 5,364 calls in the past year, and zero resulted in force beyond handcuffing.