The Phoenix City Council set an end-of-March deadline for crews that handle certain crisis calls without police officers, firefighters or paramedics to have availability around the clock.
Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee members are scheduled to get an update Wednesday on the Community Assistance Program.
The order to establish 24/7 dispatch coverage came down in September, months after civil rights investigators for the U.S. Justice Department said the city and its police discriminate against people with behavioral health disabilities.
City officials say the number of police calls transferred to crisis intervention supervisors spiked last year to roughly 2,000. There’s a supervisor available to work dispatch about two-thirds of the time.
Behavioral health units and crisis response teams are currently on the road for all but a combined seven-and-a-half hours per week.
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In a district with more than 80% nonwhite students, the community is calling for a more rigorous effort to protect schools from potential immigration enforcement activity. -
A bill advancing in the Arizona Legislature would direct local police to determine the immigration status of people they’ve arrested. If a person is undocumented, local police would be required to notify federal immigration officers. -
Friday is the final day of a social services event for veterans at the state fairgrounds. It includes satellite courtrooms so former military can clear their records of fines, fees and other minor legal issues. -
The expanded order requires services that transfer money abroad to report data about customers who make transactions over $1,000. -
Investigators released their preliminary report on the DPS helicopter that crashed in Flagstaff last month, killing both officers onboard. The report found no evidence of maintenance issues or ballistic damage but found evidence of main rotor strikes to the tail rotor gearbox.
