Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday he’s working to get Chicago Police Department terminals back to the city’s mental health crisis teams, which have struggled to find psychiatric emergencies they can help defuse since police took the equipment away.
Speaking at a City Hall news conference, Johnson confirmed the update following this week’s Tribune story that found the Police Department took out those portable data terminals last July, leading to a major drop in responses for the Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement team that had relied heavily on the machines to learn about incidents in real time.
Johnson did not provide a deadline for the teams to again have the terminals.
“Yeah, so we’re working to have those PDTs restored,” Johnson told reporters. “As I said, this is a brand-new program, it’s unprecedented, it’s the first of its kind in the city of Chicago. We have our own unique set of circumstances that exist in Chicago.”
CARE first debuted in 2021 under Mayor Lori Lightfoot as the idea of sending crisis response teams with mental health professionals gained popularity following nationwide protests against police brutality. Lightfoot piloted a co-responder model with Chicago police and fire that progressives such as Johnson bristled against. He ousted her in 2023 with a platform that included transitioning law enforcement out of the program.
The results the last three years have been bumpy. The Fire Department stopped reliably staffing CARE units with its paramedics, leading to responses plummeting almost 70% during Johnson’s second year, and his former Health Commissioner Dr. Olusimbo “Simbo” Ige sparred with senior mayoral staff over filling dozens of vacancies. She resigned at Johnson’s request last month.
Following police radio communications was the most reliable way for the mental health teams to hear about emergencies and dispatch themselves to scenes, and once the Police Department took them away 11 months ago for undisclosed reasons, the teams’ responses to mental health emergencies fell another 52%.
CPD’s press team deferred questions about the situation to the Johnson administration.
In a statement on Tuesday, Chicago Fire Department spokeswoman Kathy Peyton-Chaney said CFD “did not stop supporting” CARE but the department’s “primary responsibility is maintaining staffing for its emergency response system, including ambulances and fire companies.”
“Throughout the pilot, CFD provided the two paramedics requested for the initiative,” Peyton-Chaney wrote. “However, those paramedics were detailed from existing CFD assignments, and that staffing approach was intended only for the pilot phase, not as a permanent operational model.”
Asked why he could not corral city agencies under his control sooner, the mayor said “when we’re building something new, something transformational,” his team takes a “layered approach towards ensuring that this new initiative works for the benefit of the people.”
“My commitment and investment in public mental health services, I’m only second to Mayor Harold Washington,” Johnson said. “I’m going to continue to make sure that these departments are aware of those desires. … As far as those vacancies are concerned, I know the (health) department is working diligently to fill them.”
Johnson’s deputy mayor of health and human services, Arturo Carrillo, previously told the Tribune that CARE was also planning to expand its hours — now from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.— into the evening, with a target deadline of October. The mayor on Tuesday touted that update and that CARE will be expanding citywide, which was announced last month days before Ige was pushed out.
Health Committee Chair Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd — a Johnson ally who is also the City Council’s loudest champion of the “Treatment Not Trauma” campaign that included transitioning police out of CARE — declined to comment Tuesday on its progress.
The Tribune’s Jake Sheridan and Robert Channick contributed reporting.
