Community Responders for Equity, Safety & Service

Purpose:

The reason for creating the Community Responders for Equity, Safety & Service (CRESS) department is to provide community safety services in situations that don’t involve violence or serious crime.  It will create a civilian, unarmed alternative to calls that might otherwise require a response from the Police Department.

The purpose is to ensure that any public safety response is anti-racist, equitable, just, and fair and that we offer preventative services that get at the root of assisting our community members to avoid necessitating public safety involvement in the first place. 

Implementation Team:

• Brianna Owen, CSWG Co-chair
• Ellisha Walker, CSWG Co-chair
• Scott Livingstone, Police Chief
• Tim Nelson, Fire Chief
• Jennifer Moyston, Assistant Director of Diversity Equity, & Inclusion
• Mike Curtin, Dispatch Supervisor
• Gabe Ting, Police Captain
• Russ Vernon-Jones, CSWG member

The Implementation Team is working to: 

• Determine scope of CRESS
• Relationship with police, fire, EMS
• Identify calls directed to CRESS
• Project number of CRESS responders and size of department
• Develop job descriptions/recruit applicants
• Review communication protocols
• Develop outreach efforts
• Create training requirements for CRESS staff
• Develop program details including policies and procedures