In October of 2021, the Ottawa Police Department received a Justice Assistant Grant, or JAG, of over $250,000 to create a Community Policing Unit with a Community Policing Officer and crisis co-responder. The department was seeing a big increase in the number of calls in which someone was in a mental health crisis, which officers are not trained to handle. That program has paid off in a big way. Chief Adam Weingartner on how the calls are handled:
The intent is to provide outreach, education and resources for those at- risk and divert individuals and families into services before they reach crisis levels.
Weingartner discussed the Community Policing Unit more on this week’s Community Perspective.
