COLUMBUS, Ohio —
The Columbus Safety Collective Campaign submitted an amendment on March 7 to Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein proposing a division within the Department of Public Safety that would respond to non-dangerous calls, without police presence.
“We would be taking this approach of a non-police response system, a non co-responder model, meaning there will be no police involved in these mental health calls,” said Chana Wiley, co-chair of the Executive Committee for the Columbus Safety Collective Campaign. “We would have trained clinicians, social workers and peer supporters that are earning a robust salary that know their community and that know how to respond to their neighbors in their time of need as a team.”