Yellowstone County has some of the best-trained and effective law enforcement officers in the state. All of them are trained to handle high-stress situations calmly. Many have even been to training such as Crisis Intervention Training. These programs can give you a solid foundation, but our deputies and police officers should not be dealing with mental health calls primarily. They are here to protect the people of Yellowstone County from people who may mean them harm, and not repsonding to someone with a mental health problem who needs to goto the hospital, unless their is a safety concern.

When I was a young soldier in the Army, I learned, and it was drilled into me to use the right tool for the job. Sure, you could drive it down the street, but it might be hard to parallel park. The same applies to the police handling mental health calls. I want to work with the City of Billings to create a joint mental health patrol. These patrols would be an EMT and a mental health professional. They would ride together and take mental health calls, freeing the police to handle criminal matters. Programs have shown a 15-40 daily reduction in inmates. This would bring the running total up to 70 fewer estimates if the programs barely work.