On September 6, 2022, the Town of Amherst officially initiated a program to re-envision how to approach public safety in their community. After two years of study and months of interviews and training, Amherst’s Community Responders for Equity, Safety, and Service (CRESS) has begun active service. The goal of every CRESS response is to ensure the safety and well-being of all parties, citizens as well as responders, and to provide resources and relationships for those in need. The research has found that this can be accomplished by identifying beforehand which calls to police/public safety responders truly require a uniformed armed officer and which do not. Studies (attached below) conducted for Amherst with the assistance of the fire department, the police department, and other community members, found that a very large percentage of calls do not need an armed response and that providing an alternate response can save lives and provide the appropriate assistance.
Pelham’s Anti-Racism Advisory Committee has been following this closely for the past two years. Along with our regular meetings, we have met with our Police Chief, Gary Thomann, to get the police perspective on this, as well as to understand what the police department's concerns, needs, and vision for the future might be. The Chief has been extremely open and forthcoming. We greatly appreciate our meetings with him and have learned a great deal.
We have also had meetings with officials in Amherst, including meetings with the new Director of the CRESS program, Earl Miller, and attended forums and community gatherings regarding CRESS, to get a greater perspective.
Additionally, we met with the principal researchers for the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) who conducted the Amherst study which led to the creation of their CRESS program. Our questions for them were about whether a small town such as ours needs such a study and about whether we should, and could, implement some version of the CRESS program in Pelham.
**The Town of Amherst's LEAP study & Community Safety Working Group report can be found as PDF attachments below**
We are in an historic moment in which cities and towns like Amherst and around the country are reconsidering what is the best, most effective, and safest way to deploy public safety personnel to emergencies.
Due to new state reform laws, Pelham will be making changes in the requirements of its police officers training. This transition provides us with an opportunity to consider new possibilities.
In light of our work and study as well as encouragement from the director of Amherst CRESS and the people at LEAP, we feel Pelham can and should begin to seriously pursue a new vision for public safety.
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