well the state is trying to shift how it responds to Behavioral Health crisis in the wake of deadly police shootings with residents experiencing a mental health emergency attorney general Matt platkin today held an event to take the Pulse on a new state program being expanded it's called arrive together pairing law enforcement with a mental health professional on each and every 911 call Senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan reports this was an hour and a half call right here we were able to secure cat what she cared about we wanted to make sure that cat was okay Edison police Sergeant Matt mcski smiled describing a recent arrived together case with partner Beth Rodriguez a mental health screener they checked on an elderly woman who kept calling police alarmed about imaginary burglars rodrig has diagnosed the problem Beth was able to realize that there was some type of medical issue that needed to be taken care of um you know sometimes older folks they don't take care of themselves or they mismanage their their their pills which in turn was causing the paranoia I loved going out into the community because you get to help people when they're at their lowest point ared team members working in middx County sat on a panel to assess how well the programs worked since it kicked off here last May together they've defused domestic arguments helped folks access Mental Health Services and arranged for follow-up care and sat on the phone and was able to set the patient up with uh outpatient services right there on the spot so that that's stuff that we never would have had access to before attorney general Matt plen found it arriv together back in December 2021 its main objective to avoid violent outcomes when someone experiences an emotional crisis by pairing a plain Clos officer with a mental health expert what arrive really is is a recognition that we have asked law enforcement to do far too much and that no one person can be everything and do everything that's required in that moment of Crisis and the best news about arrive is that it's working so far arrived teams have logged 1300 cases in 10 New Jersey counties in middlex County they've handled 58 responses without an arrest or an injury calls differ significantly from regular policing says Highland Parks detective Brian omara we were there for an hour and a half and that and that's a big thing these calls are not uh you know 20 minutes in and out like we're used to in police work officers on arrive teams express some surprise at how long the call can take that presents a hurdle for the smaller departments who'd like to join but just don't have the staff it's really do they have enough officers do we have enough do we have the right type of screeners that will go out for it most of the towns really are clamoring for it advocacy groups point to police shootings that involved people in crisis nijie seab Brooks and Patterson and Andrew Jerome Washington in Jersey City they appreciate arrive but want a community Orient oriented response that doesn't involve police we have been failing people and so I do think that this program is a good first step I think it's a step in the right direction but I think that we could be doing more I think we could be making larger investments in community-led based responses The Brookings Institute back in March praise derives record no arrests in 98% of cases no use of force in 97% but it noted the statistics remain thin for a brand new program that's still expanding and these are the most difficult calls that law enforcement has to respond to and so nobody's spiking any footballs or saying you know mission accomplished but what we are doing is saying this alternative response is working and we want more people to come on board the Attorney General says arrive will be operational in all 21 New Jersey counties by December in Piscataway I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight news talk about [Music]