Cleveland City council members joined Case Western Reserve University law students and Tanisha Anderson’s family Thursday to unveil a city ordinance codifying nonpolice response to people in mental health crisis in Cleveland.
Ordinance 1198-2024, introduced Monday, would create a Department of Community Crisis Response in the mayor’s office, with a director overseeing police department, EMS and public health responses. Police policies on responding to mental health crises would change, including sending clinicians as first responders instead of officers to certain calls.
If passed, it would require eight hours of training on crisis intervention during the police academy and four hours of in-service training every year for every officer.
Some of the measures in the ordinance are required by the police consent decree, including the eight hours of crisis intervention training for every officer, but those provisions could end once the city is released from the consent decree.
Two of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rebecca Maurer and Stephanie Howse-Jones, said council doesn’t know how many calls would fall under the category of “mental health crisis.” The third sponsor is Councilmember Charles Slife.
“We absolutely need a champion for this, a champion with real authority, to be able to help organize what’s happening in the city of Cleveland,” said Howse-Jones. “So that we can be assured that no matter what number you call, you will be addressed, you will be responded to and you will be addressed in a way that gives you honor.”
Anderson’s uncle, Michael Anderson, helped launch the ordinance by reaching out to CWRU Professor Ayesha Bell Hardaway. Students at CWRU’s law school worked with Hardaway to develop the legislation, and Anderson approached Howse-Jones about introducing the ordinance at council.
“I really appreciate everything that went forth with trying to create this legislation,” Anderson said.
Tanisha Anderson died 10 years ago after her family called for police assistance during a mental health crisis. After she resisted getting into a police vehicle, officers handcuffed her and pinned her to the ground. Anderson lost consciousness and officers waited until a supervisor arrived on scene before providing any medical assistance or calling paramedics.
Anderson’s nephew Jacob Johnson was there that night.
“This will mean that no other family will have to endure what we endured,” Johnson said. “Not just based on what happened but having to go through life without her.”
The city launched a co-responder program in 2020 — where a clinician responds with a police officer after other officers have responded – with a team in each district. That program expanded with American Rescue Plan Act funding last year.
The city has done a good job creating crisis response teams that respond after police go to a scene, said Councilmember Rebecca Maurer, but she said more needs to be done.
“Very often those co-response teams, though well-trained, exceptional, doing good work, they end up days later, not even hours or minutes later, but days later responding,” Maurer said.
There’s still work to be done to figure out details, including how many calls to 911 could be diverted, whether clinicians would be city employees or contracted through an outside organization and how much funding crisis response teams would need.
The co-sponsors plan to spend the next few months holding meetings with organizations like the Mental Health Response Advisory Committee and the public and hearings at council. The goal is to pass an ordinance by the end of 2025, said Howse-Jones.
