BLM and Liberals demanded that the police be defunded, some went as far as to demand the police be abolished entirely. These rioters claimed that cities should use social workers instead to handle calls. So Denver, Colorado implemented their STAR Support Team Assistance Response program which pairs up a social worker and EMT to handle some calls. But instead of showcasing how they were far more effective, they have only taken about 3% of the calls and at least a third of which the police stayed on scene to make sure it was safe for them.
“First of all, NBC News claims that not a single one of the more than 1,300 calls STAR responded to resulted in a need to call the Denver PD for backup. That may be technically true, but what they’re not saying is that more than a third of those calls (more than 450) were received from Denver PD officers who arrived at the scene first and decided to let STAR try to handle it. There was no need for backup because the cops were already there and hung around to make sure the STAR team could deal with it.
Also, the program screens the 911 calls as carefully as possible. The full report states that the 911 center received 6,400 calls during the period the program has been running that would have been eligible for a STAR response, but they only dispatched a STAR van in 3% of those cases. They do not send out STAR to any call where the suspect is either armed or exhibiting violent behavior.”
This is a prime example of just how much we need the police. The social worker, EMT combos are fine but they can’t handle the range of calls police get every day and the STAR program needs police to escort them to/from dangerous situations. So BLM is wrong again.