Crisis Response Requires Compassion and Care – not Policing
When someone in D.C. is in the middle of a mental health crisis, they and their loved ones often have nowhere safe and reliable to turn. All too commonly the only option becomes dialing 911, and that brings police into situations they are not trained to address.
I have been working with a coalition of D.C. residents focused on crisis response in the District where we aim to shift the default away from policing and toward care. Our work is rooted in the conviction that crises require clinical, de-escalating, and trauma-informed responses. There is so much food for thought around this issue: how can we do better? Where are we perpetuating harm? Is our system using evidence-based practices to help our fellow residents in crisis — and where can we implement change?
Mental health crises are rarely straightforward. They often unfold amid confusion, overlapping risks, substance use, homelessness, or communication barriers. That complexity can lead to tragic outcomes. A recent case in D.C. painfully illustrates how quickly a crisis can spiral: in January 2024, officers confronted a man named Clifford Brooks, who was reportedly in a mental health crisis. He was moved into an ambulance but later escaped, and—according to prosecutors— lunged at an officer with what was described as a “metal object.” The officer fired six fatal rounds at Brooks. [Source]
This incident calls us to reflect not just on the nuance of mental health, but on the systems we have in place for responding to a crisis. When law enforcement becomes the default responder, high-stakes split-second decisions are made without the context of mental health expertise and training.
Research shows that people experiencing mental health crises — especially coupled with substance use or homelessness — are more vulnerable to coercive, punitive responses when policing is the default. That contributes to cycles of incarceration, trauma, and social disconnection.
A federal response to crisis response & encampments
In August 2025, the trump administration invoked a “crime emergency” to assume federal control of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department and deploy National Guard troops to patrol the streets under federal command. Although the administration justified the intervention by citing rising crime, statistics showed that violent crime in D.C. had actually declined, with 2024 levels at a 30-year low. [Reuters] The initiative began with clearing encampments of unhoused people, where “officers were said to have thrown tents, sleeping bags and other belongings in the trash.”
Homelessness and mental illness often co-occur: serious mental illness and substance use are among the strongest predictors of homelessness. [PMC] When militarized policing targets homeless encampments, those with untreated mental health needs are forced into dislocation, cycles of arrest, and trauma.
The solution isn’t a mystery
We could be directing money away from jails and policing and instead funding crisis intervention teams composed of mental health clinicians, peer responders, and de-escalation experts—people trained to meet individuals where they are and guide them toward treatment and support. They’ve done this successfully in Portland, Oakland, Albuquerque, and beyond.
Where DC has moved in a good direction in the past with mobile crisis intervention, we are threatened with resourcing shortfalls. The Child and Adolescent Mobile Psychiatric Service (ChAMPS), D.C.’s only emergency mobile response program for children and teens, is facing proposed budget cuts that would slash its funding from $1.8 million to about $676,000. Such a cut would make it nearly impossible to sustain its current operations. [The Washington Post] Additionally, about 100 schools in D.C. do not have a dedicated mental health clinician. For DC’s crisis response teams, resource limits have meant staffing shortages, limited hours, and inability to respond in certain neighborhoods or times. [The Washington Post]. Not to mention, working with a mobile crisis response team requires cross-sector buy-in; Dispatch systems and 911 operations may not reliably route appropriate calls to mobile crisis teams, instead automatically triaging to police even when the scenario would be better handled by mental health professionals. [Pew Charitable Trusts]
We know transformation is not easy. But trump’s need to divert funding away from treatment and quickly sweep the streets of DC with force does not solve the root of systemic problems – and even if the sight of people in mental health crisis or in the throes of homelessness might “disappear” temporarily, we are further harming vulnerable individuals and creating a much deeper problem than existed before.