@dbattistella But to your comment, in my opinion:
- The difference between a person in acute mental health crisis and a person who is acutely intoxicated is challenging; mistaking the latter for the former can be deadly if the intoxication is something like Flakka, PCP, or other drugs
- Firefighters can't detain and have no power of arrest.
Cops are rarely paramedics (my former agency was triple threat - everyone was police, fire, and EMT).
- Firefighters don't patrol.
Cops *tend to view things through a binary filter: arrest or don't.
The answer isn't zero sum; the problem is too big for the kind of cut you mention. It needs police, fire, and EMT to be better trained in mental health emergencies, train together, and, as happens in Tarrant County, proactively seek out and help to stabilize patients, especially those who are treatment and medication non-compliant.
