ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Rochester's Police Accountability Board held a hearing Thursday on the Person in Crisis (PIC) Team.
This was in response to a fatal officer-involved shooting Wednesday and separate incidents in which a 9-year-old girl and a woman holding a child were pepper sprayed.
The current PIC team is made up of teams of two behavioral professionals, and each has crisis intervention training.
When asked why PIC did not respond to the incident this past Wednesday, Department of Recreation and Human Services Commissioner Dr. Daniele Lyman-Torres says it would be the Forensic Intervention Team (FIT) team that responds to those kinds of incidents. And that's where some of the confusion is coming from.
The Forensic Intervention Team responds alongside police, whereas the PIC team is a separate entity designed specifically to not need officers to respond.
Lyman-Torres also touched on the PIC team's budget, which currently stands at close to $700,000 a year.
She says although the PIC team is not at some of these situations involving officers, they have had an impact already since the program launched in January.
"We've been able to respond to a mom who moved here from New York City whose child probably has autism but doesn't have a diagnosis was in crisis and in crisis in the home and we were able to go and not only support that child with de-escalation but connect that family to services, hopefully to get her that diagnosis so she can get the services that she needs,” said Lyman-Torres.