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Ramsey County 911 operators could soon dispatch social and mental health workers, child welfare staff and even nonprofit employees to crisis calls, in one of the most dramatic transformations of the emergency call system since its inception half a century ago.
At a time when communities across the country are rethinking traditional models of policing, Minnesota’s second-largest county is trying a fresh approach in which teams of responders, including law enforcement, are trained to help people in crisis, said Scott Williams, Ramsey County’s deputy county manager of safety and justice. When a 911 call comes in, civilian co-responders could immediately be dispatched alongside traditional first responders, or even instead of them in some cases…
