By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Police Chief Jeff Hooper noted that his department is dealing with a spike in crisis calls this month.
"That's been a growing concern for us," Hooper said. "Our crime rate is down. Officers aren't responding to as many crime-related calls, but our crisis calls, that's people that are either suffering from a mental health crisis or a substance abuse crisis, those calls are up in the community. In fact, just yesterday, during our day shift, we answered twelve calls of that nature. That's a rising concern."
It is fortunate, though, that the department has trained staff to deal with the worst of those calls.
"We've got our crisis response team, they were extremely busy yesterday," Hooper said. "It's also keeping our regular officers busy, because the crisis response team goes to the most serious of those calls. Hopefully, we can keep those serious people out of crisis for the future, but it's taxing on our resources in a given day."
It may initially help to get officers involved in some cases, but it's the follow up where the new team can help.
"As soon as we leave, they have a tendency to downward spiral again back into crisis," Hooper said. "That's the whole point of that crisis response team, where we have that follow up contact and we don't just leave them and abandon them and we're back call after call."
Crime numbers so far are down about 30% this year in Hutchinson. Hooper said it's too early in the year to know if those numbers will hold for the rest of 2021.