GREENFIELD — As the Police Department deals with the impact of $425,000 in cuts to its fiscal year 2023 budget, conversations are beginning to happen regarding the future of policing in Greenfield.
“I’ve been a police officer for 33 years, and the only consistent thing about policing has been change,” said acting Police Chief William Gordon. “I’m very excited for the future. This is a situation that we’ll deal with and we’ll work through, and we’ll only become better.”
Following a May 6 jury verdict that found the Greenfield Police Department and Police Chief Robert Haigh Jr. discriminated against former Officer Patrick Buchanan, the department’s only Black officer at the time he was denied a promotion in 2014, City Council cut the Police Department’s budget in the amount of $400,000 for salaries, bringing the salary line down to $3.1 million, and $25,000 in expenses, bringing the expense line to $275,000. On the night of the decision, councilors spoke to the cut as a means to signal the department was in need of “major change.”
“The council is looking for a fundamental change in law enforcement,” Gordon said. “We have to decide what that change is.”
At a recent Public Safety Commission meeting, Gordon described and advocated for CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) a longstanding program in Eugene, Oregon, that provides unarmed crisis intervention, and in effect, helps to divert certain, non-violent calls from police response. Although dispatched through an emergency call center, CAHOOTS workers are not trained in law enforcement, nor do they have the same authority as police.
Similar, municipal-based programs are underway in Amherst and Northampton.
Locally, Greenfield People’s Budget, a community group that advocates for “community-led solutions to public safety,” has been looking to bring a similar — possibly regionalized — civilian crisis response program to Greenfield.
“One of the interesting things about the CAHOOTS model, and some other models across the country, is it’s not licensed clinicians who go on calls,” explained Jon Magee, a member of Greenfield People’s Budget, noting that a responding team typically consists of two people: a medic and a crisis counselor. “There’s actually some value in that. … If you’re not a licensed clinician, you’re not able to invoke Section 12, or involuntary hospitalization. … They’re going to provide care that … is consensual. That’s a principle CAHOOTS takes very seriously.”
Magee said programs like CAHOOTS help to rebuild trust in a community.
“The benefit there is that people will call for help when previously they might not have,” Magee said, adding that, even in a civilian response model, there would be a degree of partnership with the police.
“Across the country, people have had some qualms about that,” Magee said. “I will say that in CAHOOTS, they have a very positive relationship with the police and the police make space for CAHOOTS to handle things on their own. If a weapon is involved, that’s when the police are called.”
Gordon noted that while there are calls civilians can respond to — and typical police duties, like checking parks, that civilians can take on — dispatchers don’t always have all the information necessary to determine whether a call is, indeed, non-violent before sending someone to respond.
“We don’t often have the facts before,” he said. With burglar alarms, for example, “we don’t always know what set the alarm off until after we arrive.”
Gordon said he is “100% on board” with any change that comes to law enforcement, but finding funding is often central to the conversation.
“With more funding, can we do more? Yes. That’s definitely the case,” he said. “We’re definitely not going to be able to do it with less funding. Are grants out there? Probably, and we’re going to be looking at them.”
Magee acknowledged that funding is necessary to grow new programs. Still, referring to the cuts made to the fiscal year 2023 budget, Magee noted City Council’s decision in this case wasn’t a decision on whether to add or remove a certain program.
“That was not part of the debate — CAHOOTS was not part of this proposal at all,” Magee said. “Some councilors were concerned our per capita spending in Greenfield seems a lot higher than towns of similar size. Another reason, of course, was not trusting the mayor to hold the department accountable, and thus cutting the budget by the amount of salaries of those they thought should be fired.”
Beyond finding the funding, Gordon said determining what the community wants is where he hopes to begin the process moving forward.
Magee — who said despite the strain in the community that followed the Buchanan verdict, he has found councilors, Gordon and the mayor to be interested in “exploring steps forward” — echoed a similar sentiment.
“I hope that through the process of reviewing the police, and generally public safety activities and costs and types of response and who’s responding and what the community needs are … we can have a more deliberate plan for how to move forward” Magee said, “and for how to find the right level of funding for the right kind of response for these kinds of needs.”
Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne