Feb 26 email to TMMs

Dear Town Meeting Members,

We write to you as Lexington Residents Reimagining Public Safety (LRRPS), a small group formed in July 2021. Our mission is to engage collaboratively with Town elected officials and staff to reimagine what public safety in Lexington can look like and to raise awareness in the community regarding inclusive and equitable public safety practices that are possible in communities like ours. You can read the full LRRPS charter on our website: lrrps.org

In a few weeks, we will be convened for a Special Town Meeting (2022-1) to consider and vote upon Article 2: Appropriate for Police Station Construction. The process leading up to this article’s presentation has been an extensive one, taking place over a period of time that included significant events and discussion across the country related to policing practices and social justice concerns. While most of these events occurred in other towns, cities, and states, the Town of Lexington experienced the tragedy of a police shooting death just days ago, on February 12, 2022. This experience brings into sharp focus the need to consider our Town’s policing practices, especially as we consider moving forward with a new home for our Police Department that must serve Lexington’s public safety needs for many decades to come.

While the February 12 incident was tragic and upsetting, it was neither unpredictable nor unusual; there have been similar incidents in the past two years in other Massachusetts communities, including Waltham, Lynn, Burlington, and Woburn. A common factor in these cases seems to be that police have encountered a person suffering a mental health crisis, and the result has been the fatal shooting of the person in crisis. We may feel that there is nothing we could have done to prevent this incident, but it is absolutely possible for us to act now to help prevent such incidents in the future.

The new police station design process has included discussion of a space for mental health professionals (labeled on recent drawings as “Social Services”). While this is an excellent first step, we believe that the Town must create a specific plan for integrating mental health professionals into the process of handling emergency calls. This is not a new concept–it is already bearing fruit in other communities across the country. Please see the list of programs below, along with links to more information about alternative emergency response initiatives.

A favorable vote on Article 2 should be accompanied by a request for the Town’s commitment to explore best practices for alternative emergency response. The safety of our community, especially its most vulnerable members, depends on it. We fully support the Commission on Disability’s plan to form a workgroup to explore policing policies and practices related to mental health. We urge Town Meeting Members to engage in this conversation at this crucial moment, as we discern how we allocate significant financial resources to the next phase of policing and public safety in Lexington.

Sincerely,

Sarah Higginbotham, TMM Pct. 5

Valerie Overton, TMM Pct. 1

Tom Shiple, TMM Pct. 9

Alexis Porras

Existing programs:

Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets (CAHOOTS) - Euguene, OR

Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) - Denver, CO

Crisis Response Unit (CRU) - Olympia, WA

Expanded Mobile Crisis Outreach Team (EMCOT) - Austin, TX

Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) of the Phoenix Police Dept - Phoenix, AZ

Family Crisis Intervention Team (FACIT) - Rochester, NY