Social worker now ‘embedding’ with Stamford police: ‘We talked all the way to the hospital’

STAMFORD — When a young boy in crisis needed to go to the hospital recently, licensed clinical social worker Carolina Grijalba-Rodriguez offered to ride with him in a police car.

“Listen, I know it’s very anxiety-provoking, but I’m gonna be there with you. Let’s go together,” Grijalba-Rodriguez said she told the boy. “We talked all the way to the hospital.”

Under a contract between the city and the nonprofit Recovery Network of Programs, Grijalba-Rodriguez began “embedding” with the Stamford Police Department earlier this month, city officials said Wednesday during a news conference where they outlined several other mental health-related initiatives Stamford has started over the last year or so.

So far, Grijalba-Rodriguez said she has gone on about a half-dozen ride-alongs with police. She said she also follows up on mental health-related calls to connect individuals and families with resources and services.

“The biggest issue that I kept on hearing from every officer that I was riding with is the fact that ... Let’s say, if the person says they want to hurt themselves, they will take them to the hospital. Then a half hour, 45 minutes, a little while later, the person can check themselves out,” Grijalba-Rodriguez said.

Her job is to make a follow-up call to the person and ask about what help they may need.

“So there’s that continuation of services, so we don’t keep on getting the same phone calls over and (over again),” she said.

The Stamford Police Department has faced calls for reform since Steven Barrier, a 23-year-old Black man who lived with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other disorders, died after having a heart attack while in police custody in 2019.

Alan Fuchsberg, the attorney overseeing a “wrongful death” lawsuit about Barrier that was filed against the city, said Wednesday that embedding a social worker in the police department was “a step in the right direction.” But the suit calls for more, including the establishment of a “community-based mutual aid, peer-led system” that is available to people 24/7.

“How much can one social worker do?” Fuchsberg said.

Mayor David Martin said the program may be expanded for that reason.

“Six weeks from now or two months, if it’s working, we’re going to figure out how to find the money, which is not in the budget, but I’ll figure out how to find it and get this expanded,” Martin said.

Ted Jankowski, Stamford’s director of public safety, health and welfare, said the city’s police officers respond to more than 1,000 mental health incidents every year.

He noted that the police department has been putting its officers through crisis intervention training, where they “learn how to deal with individuals having mental health episodes.” About 125 officers have completed the 40-hour course so far.

And in January, the city tweaked the way it handled mental health calls.

Previously, the department’s policy was to send two officers and a sergeant to respond to any call involving a mental health crisis. Now, dispatchers ask callers more questions, Stamford Police Chief Tim Shaw said, and if there is “any sign of violence,” officers will go to the scene. But if there isn’t, police won’t show up at the scene. Instead, they’ll just be positioned nearby, in case emergency medical services encounter an issue.

“So it helps the officers because a lot of times, the officers don’t feel that they need to be there, but by our previous policy, we would show up on all of them,” Shaw said. “It also helps the families because sometimes, it is true, there is a perception that — and perception may be reality — when a couple of uniformed officers show up, it can antagonize the situation on occasion.”

But Martin made clear that he believes police should still be involved in responding to mental health calls.

“You’ve heard across the country: ‘Oh, we should defund the police and just respond with social workers,’” Martin said. “Now, I can guarantee you that if you had to respond to many of these calls, you’d know that that just is not a practical way to respond. There are many cases where the police have to be there to protect individuals — both protect them from themselves as well as others — and the police are our first responders to so many different situations that that’s just not responsible. But that doesn’t mean that we always have to respond with a show of force as our first response to certain situations.”

Includes prior reporting by staff writer Pat Tomlinson.