Burlington, Graham, Elon wouldn’t sign on to having their officers available for off-duty work
Alamance County’s leaders have a new bone to pick with some local police departments over their reluctance to join a multiagency effort that aims to beef up security at the county’s mental health center.
Members of the county’s board of commissioners didn’t hesitate to publicly shame the police forces in Burlington, Elon, and Graham for their apparent aloofness when they adopted this interjurisdictional agreement on Monday to provide 24-hour security for the Alamance County Behavioral Health Center.
This new “memorandum of understanding,” which received a unanimous nod from the county’s governing board, allows the office of Alamance County’s sheriff to draw personnel from outside his own ranks to guard this county facility, which is located within Burlington’s city limits.
According to county officials, the sheriff’s limited manpower has been one of the obstacles to the center’s full utilization since it officially opened its doors along Kirkpatrick Road over the summer. Once its pumping on all cylinders, this multimillion-dollar center is meant to serve as the first port of call for people suffering mental health or substance abuse crises that might otherwise land them in jail or the emergency room. At the moment, however, county officials believe that the center is falling short of its promise for reasons that include a shortage of deputies to provide round-the-clock security.
Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens assured the commissioners that the aforementioned memorandum of understanding will give the sheriff’s office the wherewithal to overcome the staffing-related hurdles he presently faces.
“As you know the sheriff doesn’t necessarily need your permission to ask folks to help him on an emergency basis,” Stevens reminded the commissioners before they approved the agreement on Monday. “The issue we had to overcome was giving those folks territorial jurisdiction [in a non-emergency situation].”
Stevens stressed that the cost of this extra personnel will ultimately be picked up by the contractor that manages the center’s day-to-day operations on behalf of the county. As a result, he insisted that any agency which accepts the agreement will have no added expense to absorb.
“[This agreement] does not necessarily mean that they are contributing financially for the operation,” he added. “It’s just giving their people an opportunity to work and be paid off duty.”
In spite of this pledge of financial neutrality, sheriff Terry Johnson acknowledged that he’s been fighting an uphill battle to get some local police departments to sign onto the compact.
According to the text of the document that Stevens presented, the agreement’s presumed signatories currently include the police departments in Mebane, Haw River, and Gibsonville, as well as the campus police for Elon University and Alamance Community College. Notably absent from this roll are the municipal police forces in Graham, Elon, and Burlington – whose chiefs Johnson said have declined his previous overtures to let their officers help out with the center’s security in their off-duty hours.
“We met with all the other local agencies in the county,” the sheriff asserted before Monday’s vote, “and they seem to think that the mental health problem is the sheriff’s problem. So, they don’t want to do it.”
John Paisley, Jr., the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, went on to admonish two of these holdouts by name for their apparent refusal to spare any officers for the center’s protection.
“I would note that Burlington and Elon aren’t part of this agreement,” Paisley declared, “and I personally believe that [because] the center is inside the city of Burlington, they should be required to provide security.
“I hate to call out these agencies but they’re not stepping up to the plate to help their own citizens,” the board’s chairman added. “I just want the public to know who is helping and who is not.”
Steve Carter, the vice chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, followed up on the chairman’s remarks to observe that Graham’s police department is also missing from the memorandum’s presumed signatories.
Carter went on to suggest that some of these agencies may be hesitant to sacrifice any officers because they’re currently spread just as thin as the sheriff. The board’s vice chairman nevertheless observed that, prior to the center’s creation, municipal police officers spent untold hours in the emergency room with suspects in the midst of mental health crises. He went on to propose that any agency which doesn’t appreciate its relief from this obligation should have to go back to the way things were done in the past.
“If Graham’s not going to participate, and Burlington’s not going to participate,” he insisted, “I think they should be forced to have an officer remain at the facility with anybody delivered [to the behavioral health center].”
The commissioners took no action on Carter’s punitive proposal before they voted 5-to-0 in favor of the memorandum of understanding.
