The Syracuse Police Department and Liberty Resources agreed to expand their partnership for Mobile Crisis Response Services.

“Instead of criminalizing those that need the help the most, we want to make sure that we go extra, extra step," Syracuse Common Councilor Chol Majok said. “We gotta do something." 

The Mobile Crisis response team is comprised of mental health professionals and is deployed when a 911 call is made when someone is in a mental crisis.

Syracuse Police Deputy Chief Mark Rusin on Tuesday spoke to members of Syracuse’s Public Safety Committee, detailing results from the program from the beginning of the year to the end of October. 

“We are averaging somewhere between 300-400 calls per month," Rusin said. "So, 3,500 to 4,500 calls per year.” 

“The numbers are still very high, still very high," Majok said. "Which is the state of our community. Mental health is ramping up.”

The expansion means more funding is going into the service to reduce the numbers. But for now, everyone knows a lot more needs to be done. 

“We have major problems that we’re working on, but we have timelines that I think are very appropriate for the problem," Rusin said. "But everybody wants this fixed yesterday. This wasn’t created overnight, it’s not going to be fixed overnight.”