CHICAGO – Rayshard Brooks was killed last June when Atlanta police responding to a report of a man asleep in a car blocking a drive-thru shot him as he tried to run away.
Later that summer, a similar situation in Eugene, Oregon, ended much differently: A man reported sleeping in a car was sent home in a cab.
The key? A mobile crisis intervention team designed to be an alternative to police in nonviolent crises responded to the parking lot, calmed the man, contacted his family and called the taxi. “I think all the time about how that could've ended differently if police responded instead,” said social work master’s student Michelle Perin, an EMT and crisis worker for the team known as CAHOOTS, short for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The