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Dallas County will consider spending $3 million on policing alternatives after summer protests

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and County Administrator Darryl Martin will pitch the grant program for mental health response teams to county commissioners in September

Dallas County officials will ask commissioners next month to create a $3 million grant program to help cities pay for policing alternatives after a summer of protests spurred a nationwide call for drastic reform.

Darryl Martin, the county administrator, is expected to make the pitch Sept. 1 when county commissioners get their first look at his proposed budget. He will also ask for about $1 million to help establish a jail alternative proposed by District Attorney John Creuzot and another million for other programs such as eviction protection.

Martin has the support of Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who tasked Martin with leading a working group of activists and city managers, the unelected executives who run the daily operations of municipalities, to answer the call of protesters.

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The group was inspired by a list of 10 demands from community activists made after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by Minneapolis police. Its members met — in public and private — for six weeks starting in July.

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The group on Monday released its final report, which spotlighted police alternative programs from across the country and testimony for people who said they were harmed by the criminal justice system.

“The working group came together and positioned Dallas County leadership to discern the zeitgeist and open the door to a new era of public safety,” the Rev. Frederick Haynes of Friendship West Baptist Church, a member of the group, said in a statement.

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The report does not include a set of policy recommendations as is customary with such efforts. Instead, the county and each participating city listed the changes they plan to put in place next year.

As The Dallas Morning News previously reported, no participating city — Balch Springs, Dallas, DeSoto, Irving, Lancaster or Mesquite — plans to cut funding to its police department. Instead, each will be making investments of various amounts into other programs to help underserved communities.

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Jenkins, in an interview with The News, said the work of this group was a strong first step, even if it falls short of a total transformation of policing in Dallas County.

“We knew it was never possible to fix all racial disparities in one six-week period,” he said. “But this is a commitment from six cities to improve policing and I hope will lead to more positive change.”

While the cities stopped short of cutting their police department budgets, several plan to invest in some sort of mental health program.

Mesquite has earmarked about $100,000 for mental health services, including more training for its fire and police departments. It also will work with the county and surround cities to establish a team of first responders to answer mental health calls. It may be modeled after a program in Oregon that works inside the 911 system but without police involvement.

Irving is planning to invest about $260,000 in two new positions to help with its existing mental health response team and domestic violence crisis team. It also plans to try again at creating a homeless teen center.

And de plans to commit $250,000 to a mental health program that will be a joint project by its library and police department.

All proposals by city managers must be approved by their respective city councils. Local governments, including Dallas County, must approve their budgets by Sept. 30.

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The investment in a mental health crisis response team and jail alternative is the latest in a series of changes Dallas County has taken in recent years to reform its criminal justice system after a court-ordered it to change its bail system.

More recently, Dallas County commissioners unanimously passed a resolution demanding local police write more tickets rather than arrest individuals for low-level misdemeanors. Also in June, the county joined a small but growing number of local and state governments in declaring racism a public health emergency.