>“I feel that what we should do first is to apologize to the Black community, for having to wait this long for this,” Brown said.

https://ithacavoice.org/2025/05/long-awaited-unarmed-responders-unit-could-debut-by-end-of-2025/

Ithaca Ny could bring unarmed responders unit to talk down crime with words and passion

Long-awaited unarmed responders unit could debut by end of 2025

ITHACA, N.Y. — Five years after Ithaca’s landmark police reform effort first began, City of Ithaca officials are weighing plans to implement one of its core tenets: a small force of unarmed public safety officers.

At a May 15 special topics Common Council meeting, Deputy City Manager Dominick Recckio explained a potential model for the program that includes a new unit of 3-4 unarmed responders, a dispatching supervisor and a slew of new policies, response protocols and training. This was one of three options Recckio presented during the meeting to move the unarmed responders unit idea forward.

Recckio, who was hired in part to spearhead the unarmed responder project, said the proposal was influenced by stakeholder interviews, research into similar programs in other cities and previous votes by Common Council.

The proposal is far from its final state: factors like the size of the force and how its officers might be dispatched are all subject to change as council deliberates and gathers additional feedback.

During the meeting, both Recckio and Mayor Robert Cantelmo noted that the enhancement of existing programs could also take place in addition to the introduction of the unarmed responder unit, should councilmembers opt to do so.

The idea of unarmed officers was recommended in 2021 as part of Ithaca’s Reimagining Public Safety plan. Tompkins County introduced a partially unarmed response unit in 2023, but the city so far hasn’t seen much meaningful progress on implementing the recommendation.

>>507559089 (OP)
City officials have for the past few years allocated funds for an unarmed responders program in annual city budgets — most of which remains unspent as any efforts to initiate the process have so far failed to fully materialize.

Recckio said the city could begin hiring for its unarmed responders unit as soon as the end of this year, provided council members fund the initiative in the 2026 budget. The city typically finalizes its budget in November.

Recckio said the initial proposal of 3-4 responders was based on analyses of similar programs in other communities across the country.

Such programs typically start with one responder per 7,000-10,000 residents as an initial guideline. Recckio said unarmed responders in other cities often take on responsibilities such as “offer immediate behavioral health assistance, provide poverty-related support, conduct welfare and wellness checks, assist with housing needs and provide de-escalation of minor disputes.”

Recckio also presented alternative options, including a plan that would again table the idea of an unarmed responders unit in favor of spending the money enhancing existing police reform initiatives. Such initiatives include the Community Justice Center and the county’s Crisis Alternative Response and Engagement (CARE) team, which dispatches a mental health worker alongside an armed sheriff’s deputy when necessary.

Alderperson Phoebe Brown, one of the leading voices in support of police reform on Common Council, reiterated her frustration at the years-long delay in implementing the unarmed responders proposal.

>>507559111
“I feel that what we should do first is to apologize to the Black community, for having to wait this long for this,” Brown said. “It wasn’t the council that asked for the unarmed responders, it was community members that were very involved in the very beginning when this came out who got ignored.”

Brown expressed apprehension about the alternate proposals presented Wednesday, as she felt they wouldn’t honor the initial plan that was supported by the community, which called for five unarmed responders, among other things.

Other Common Council members agreed with Brown’s sentiment, though Fourth Ward Alderperson Patrick Kuehl said he was “elated” by the presentation and felt it represented a “concrete step” toward fulfilling the promises of the Reimagining Public Safety plan.

The concept of an unarmed responders unit first came about in 2021, in response to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive order requiring all New York municipalities to submit law enforcement reform plans in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020.

The city working group tasked with formulating Ithaca’s police reform plan originally billed the unarmed responder program as the Division of Community Solutions. They proposed the program to exist alongside the Ithaca Police Department under a proposed umbrella agency, to be called the Department of Community Safety.

>>507559142
The reform plan, called Reimagining Public Safety, generated nationwide headlines at the time, but several years later only parts of it have been actually implemented.

Perhaps the most substantial suggestion to have been implemented so far is the Community Justice Center (CJC), which has helped create databases of local law enforcement data, coordinate community outreach and looks like it will stay involved in the reform efforts as time goes on, was formed in 2022.

Recckio proposed the introduction of an action team collaboration with the Community Justice Center to move forward on the unarmed responders program. The team would include representatives from the Community Justice Center, law enforcement, community organizations, law enforcement diversion programs, the local emergency dispatch center and other community members.

Recckio said similar collaborative approaches, like that utilized in the development of the city’s recently extended pilot policy on homeless encampments, have found success.

>>507559181

“The CJC and I are calling these ‘action teams’ […] because telling people that we are ready to take action is core, people have talked about this a lot over time,” Recckio said. “There’s still a lot of talking to do, but there’s also actions to really start to take.”

Recckio said the action team will conduct further research before finalizing the policy, including dozens of interviews with people involved in the operation of community responder units elsewhere.

The total cost of the program remains unclear, though Recckio said that Ithaca’s previous annual city budgets have already allocated funds for the implementation of the unarmed responder unit, which have so far gone unspent.
>$777,000
>$777,000
>$777,000
Currently, there is $777,000 in unspent city funds for the unit implementation, which Recckio said would be a “significant down payment” to initiate whichever path council chooses in the coming weeks.

learn to make a QRD retard

>>507559419
get out of my thread you maple syrup chugging shitskin.
you pathetic freak

>>507559089 (OP)
I can't wait for the first incident of a female unarmed responder being knocked out and dragged into a rape cave

>>507559089 (OP)
MOOOMM the jews are doing their public human sacrifice thing again!

Predictable city for this. Two universities there - maybe more - mean ivory tower libs fill the place.

>>507559819
do u thonk a sanctuary city really cares?
>>507560049
lidderaly everybuddy there looks like this

>>507559640
nobody is reading all of the shit you post

>>507560259
>>507559419
people who read can,
don't need little de-railing faggots like you in this thread
keep your negativity elsewhere you putrid little measely little fucking dope
YAH! YAH!
GET OUT

>>507559111
>Recckio said the city could begin hiring for its unarmed responders unit as soon as the end of this year,
Imagine applying for this position. Going unarmed against niggers.

>>507560469
they have high rises, two, that are full of imported junkies and pitbull-owning superniggers.
they set their own building on fire.
cop calls go to those places all the time.
its really cool

>>507560661
the niggers and junkies, not the dogs.
the dogs don't know how to set the building on fire

>>507559419
hey you canadian retard,
look here
>>507560469
we've got a READER.

now suck my dick you canadian fuck, I told you so.

>>507560747
yeah the only thing that pajeet can read is is his future, from the turd he drops on the street

>>507559089 (OP)
I can't even imagine all the unarmed cops getting killed by nogs.

>>507560259
you make me want to PUKE

They are gonna die lol

Despite AA getting banned, I propose that these new vacant positions be given to African American brothers. It's the least we can do.

>>507560469
This was a fad that was pushed pretty hard during the woke era, but everybody quickly realized that it was a bad idea and scrapped it...except for Ithaca.

they will get escorts or not go out, is everybody brainfucked in how reality operates?

>>507559089 (OP)
Every nigger will just assume these cops are armed anyways. Applying for this job is tantamount to suicide.

will we see wild kung fu fights? round house kicks?

>>507561500
this is not how things work anon

>>507561581
stabbings and bleedings outs from stabbings

>>507561787
a puny knife is no match for my dim mak

>>507559654
or the resulting need to hire 3 heavy armed escorts units for the unarmed one.
1 to guard the vehicles
1 to guard the unarmed unit
1 to take the blame when their forced to shoot a nigger.

>>507559089 (OP)
>Ithaca
>NY

...sigh...this shit is so goddamn tyronesome, I swear...

They're just going to send female cops to be raped one by one in the hopes the perp will eventually calm down so they can give him a medal and a cash settlement

>>507559089 (OP)
Just post signs like this everywhere. It's literally the same thing.

>We will always get accurate information and know nothing bad can happen.

>>507560163
I think the girl with the bright red hair and the girl with the purple hair are actually girls

>>507561874
I personally want to polish my mak to a mirror like finish

>>507559089 (OP)
Let a few die then they'll realize their stupidity. Or maybe they don't and it can work, probably not though.

>>507563976
You don't like Ithaca?

>>507559089 (OP)
>>507559111
>>507559142
>>507559181
Things will never change until the intelligence agencies, military-industrial-complex lairs and defense contractor facilities are stormed and the glowniggers and parasites who work there are executed and the data they collect is leaked to the public so that the rest of these government assets, zogbots, mercenaries, glorified jannies and authority figures can be hunted down and exterminated.

this is not dumb.

the vast majority of cop callouts are for meaningless trivial bullshit like domestic violence or wellness checks on insane people.

splitting cop time between "tending to hurt feelings" and "stopping actual crime" allows for greater specialisation and means that the cops who got into being a cop to shoot buck niggers and LARP as a hero don't end up trying to deescalate some old lady with a knife who thinks the japanese have invaded or whatever.

cops are treated as a 'catch-all' for all kinds of emergencies, but they're staffed like a paramilitary. it's dumb, and it results in dumb outcomes.

real countries have already started doing things like this but america's decentralised policing is a total fucking mess so it will remain shit for generations to come though.

>>507566488
The most dangerous call law enforcement attends to is domestic abuse. By far. At least in the US.

>>507566699
that is not true.

>>507566758
Yes it is, in the US.

>>507567350
i don't believe you.

i could be wrong, of course, but i imagine the death or injury rate is higher for all manner of crimes. they don't use SWAT to respond to domestic violence calls, after all. there's a fallacy in that line of thinking (e.g. maybe the use of SWAT to respond to highest risk calls reduces the risk of those calls to low risk whereas medium risk calls go un-risk reduced) but whatever.

>>507559111
its a great idea, they will need compassionate people trained in how to de-escalate and also to know when its hopeless and get the shotty beanbag blaster out the boot of the car. (kidding)

>>507567499
if you dont believe it, sign up in virtue and become a causality so you can learn

>>507569580
>LISTEN and BELIEVE, bigot!
lolno