A joint city-county task force wants to change what happens when Knoxville residents call 9-1-1 for help that is urgent but not dangerous. The group is urging Knoxville and Knox County to launch an alternative first-responder program that would send unarmed, specially trained community responders to low-risk calls. The recommendation is laid out in a task-force plan that was finalized late last year and circulated to local officials this week. Backers say the move would let police focus on violent crime while steering people in crisis toward services and follow-up care instead of handcuffs.
What the task force recommends
The Alternative Response Taskforce’s Business and Service Delivery Plan calls for a new "community responder" program staffed by unarmed professionals trained in de-escalation, behavioral-health screening and case navigation, according to WBIR. The plan outlines a phased rollout, sets expectations for training standards and dispatch protocols, and builds in metrics to track how well the program works over time. It suggests community responder teams take on non-violent welfare checks, noise complaints and some substance-use calls. Taskforce materials and local reporting also note that those calls could be routed through 9-1-1, 9-8-8 or a non-emergency line, depending on the situation.
How it fits with existing programs
Knoxville already has a co-responder setup that pairs Crisis Intervention-trained Knoxville Police Department officers with clinicians from the McNabb Center. According to KPD's 2024 year-in-review, the unit handled roughly 900 calls last year. KPD and local reporting describe the co-responder teams as effective but stretched, with limited capacity for the volume of behavioral-health calls coming in. The task force frames the proposed community responder model as a complement to that work rather than a replacement. To actually put the new program on the street, the city and county would have to agree on dispatch rules, training requirements and how to pay for it.
Next steps and local reaction
Advocates hosted a community update on Feb. 14 and urged officials to launch a pilot program, arguing that a stand-alone unarmed team would reduce arrests and strengthen connections to care, according to organizers on their event page. Knoxville HEART has pushed for its own alternative response model, while some local leaders favor simply growing the existing co-responder units instead. Councilmember Amelia Parker, an early champion of alternative response in Knoxville, has previously called for a formal study and a task force to explore the idea, local coverage notes. WVLT reported Parker's comments in 2024. City and county leaders will now sift through the task-force plan and its budget implications before deciding whether to greenlight a pilot.
