BART looks to increase unarmed crisis staff as part of progressive police bureau
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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) BART Police have announced a new plan to increase the number of crisis intervention specialists at stations throughout their system.
The plan, discussed at the BART Board of Directors meeting on Thursday, is an expansion of a program first announced last year under the newly formed Progressive Policing and Community Engagement Bureau.
In total, BART Police plan to employ 20 crisis intervention specialists along with 10 other unarmed police ambassadors. The bureau will also include 10 sworn officers.
The teams will consist of two crisis specialists and one sworn officer, spread across five different stations in two shifts.
BART to hire social workers instead of filling police officer vacancies to deal with social problems
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BART plans to use nearly
$2 million budgeted to fill six vacant police officer positions to hire social work-trained civilians to respond to homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction that plague the train system.
The plan introduced Friday adds a supervisor
and 20 crisis intervention specialists to connect people in need with services twice as many as were approved by the board last year to the agency’s new bureau of progressive policing. It will also redeploy 10 existing sworn officers, two sergeants and two community service officers to the bureau. The plan is to pair a civilian with an officer who can stand by in case law enforcement is needed.