City establishes new crisis intervention unit following Daniel Prude's death

Rochester, N.Y. – In another change following the death of Daniel Prude last March, the City of Rochester says it is moving its Family and Victims Services Office from the Rochester Police Department.

The city says the office will fall under the operations of the Department of Recreation and Youth Services and the newly-created Crisis Intervention Services Unit.

“Today, we take a major step toward implementing much-needed change and revamping the way we will respond to non-violent crisis situations,” said Recreation and Youth Services Commissioner Daniele Lyman-Torres. “The goal of the new crisis intervention services unit is to create a non-law enforcement, comprehensive community response to all homicides, as well as to all calls involving mental health, domestic violence and other related crises.”

The plan is to have paid social workers collaborate with Monroe County's Forensic Intervention Team (FIT) and Pathways to Peace.

When someone calls for help, the 911 Center will use criteria to determine whether to send a crisis intervention team before sending police. If officers are needed, they will respond, too.

"Making sure the scene is safe for these professionals will be a key part of the protocol," said Lyman-Torres.

The unit will be split into two separate teams, one acting as a comprehensive homicide response team and the second responding to domestic violence and mental health calls. The teams will be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The work of the Family Crisis Intervention Team and the Victims Assistance Unit will also be wrapped into the new unit.

City leaders say the changes will increase accessibility to services and will prevent incidents similar to Prude’s death from happening again.

“We’re trying to work and move in a direction where what happened to the Prude family will never happen – and not just the Prude family, but any of the other homicides that we’ve had all throughout the years,” said City Council Vice President Willie Lightfoot. “We average 30-40 homicides a year. That’s 30 and 40 families that are hurting, that are traumatized, that’s a community that’s traumatized 30-40 times a year, on top of all of the shootings that we have as well. So, we’re hoping to provide these services to the community on a consistent basis so that every homicide, every family is given the same quality service.”

Leaders say these changes were in the works before news of Prude’s death became public, with development of the homicide response team beginning nearly a year ago.

Funding for the new team comes from the transfer of more than $680,000 from the Rochester Police Department’s budget and $300,000 from the City of Rochester’s Contingency Budget.

In a statement, Mayor Lovely Warren said, “The creation of this unit will allow us to immediately mobilize crisis counselors and social workers who are trained to handle certain medical situations, make referrals and provide appropriate monitoring and follow-up. Our goal is to make sure that all crisis calls are handled appropriately and those in crisis are given the type of care they need. While this new approach cannot change anything that has already happened in the past, we are putting protocols in place to make sure that the same mistakes are not repeated in the future.”

Daniel Prude’s death has cast a spotlight on emergency response to calls involving mental health crises. Monroe County has pledged to allocate more than $300,000 in additional funding to bolster mental health services within the county.

"We have acknowledged the flaws and failures in our current systems," said Lyman-Torres. "...If this unit was available at the time, it would've been on-scene."

"This is a step in the right direction," said Lightfoot. "We know there are many more steps we have to take."