it's only been a few months since the deadly police killing a Patterson native Naji Seabrooks a member of The Crisis Intervention group the Patterson Healing Collective lawmakers in Trenton introduced a bill after seabrook's death which would establish a community crisis response advisory Council and crisis response teams to be piloted in Camden Essex Middlesex Mercer and Passaic counties senior correspondent Joanna Gage reports on why Advocates believe this bill will help communities across the state no man no women no child should die while they're experiencing emotion emotional crisis when all they were asking for was help that's a message echoing through cities like Patterson growing louder in the wake of the police shooting of Naji Seabrooks three months ago while he was experiencing a mental health crisis now Trenton lawmakers are adding their voices to the cry with a new piece of legislation the purpose is to reduce the incidence of unintentional shootings or friction with the community and the way we do that is by actually enlisting the community in the effort assemblyman William Spearman is a prime sponsor of a bill that would create a pilot program putting State funding behind existing Community crisis response teams organizations like the Patterson Healing Collective and the Newark Community street team that respond to a mental health crisis much differently than police do we specialize in a credible messenger model and all that means is just somebody who's been through what they've been through who can relate to them and get them to change their way in a more less violent less volatile less systematic way you know just by just basically relating to them based on experiences the bill would provide 10 million dollars to be divided across five counties Camden Essex Mercer Middlesex and Passaic counties allocating two million dollars to bolster the efforts of the existing crisis response teams in each County it would be run under the Department of Health shifting these types of responses away from law enforcement to more of a public health matter it has the support of Faith leaders around the state the reason I love this bill is because it allows for our community to be the First Responders in essence those that are trained and because of the Bill of resource to be able to address mental health challenges as they arise these sort of Crisis moments from folk that have the training to do it you know police officers just aren't trained and don't have that level and in many ways nor should they be with all they already have the responsibility to take care of the bill would also create a community crisis response advisory Council this is something that Advocates have been long arguing for we've seen examples of these in other states and so it's a major step in the right direction as an institutionalizes and that's very important alternative and other alternative and viable ways of addressing community-based violence and prevention strategies New Jersey already piloted a program called arrive together that pairs a mental health professional with law enforcement when responding to a crisis this new pilot would allow crisis response teams to lead the response efforts and would collect data on the success rates an area that Advocates say has long been missing from this initiative we will be able to collect data and determine the viability of these programs as the council uh the Department of Health begin to allocate funding to some of these organizations there's always going to be the option to evaluate right that then allows us to be able to collect this data and make more informed choices the bill just recently passed committee but assemblyman Spearman is already hopeful about the future of programs like this this is a pilot program for the first three years so if we have really good results and we believe we will great results have already been experienced in place in places like Trenton and Patterson and Newark and Camden for that matter we believe that um this is something that we can expand to other departments but the Senate still needs to take up a version of the bill and despite the cries of support from folks on the ground that effort is stalled as of now I'm Joanna gagas NJ Spotlight news [Music] [Music]