Over the summer of 2020 people from across America protested the killing of yet more innocent black citizens by the hands of the police. Two of the most prominent names chanted were Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. During these protests there has been a cry to “defund the police.”
All who say “defund the police” are advocating for transferring money from a city’s police budget to fund other social services. While the exact amount of defunding desired varies per activist, the core message is that police are simply not equipped or trained to respond to every emergency call.
Defunding the police is not a new idea. In fact, when Pittsburgh partially defunded their police in the early 1970’s, it brought about change that saved thousands of lives. Let me tell you about the Freedom House Ambulance Service.
For more a more in-depth look into this story, check out
Freedom House: Street Saviors (trailer in the video above)
How Pittsburgh’s Freedom House Pioneered Paramedic Treatment from NPR
Freedom House Ambulance Service from 99%Invisible
To summarize the story, in the early 1960s the duty of transporting patients to hospitals fell on the police. So if you broke your leg police would arrive, throw you in the back of a police van, and drive quickly to the hospital. The mindset was “get the patient to the hospital as fast as possible.” So the police were not trained medical professionals but they were trained to drive fast.
However the police would not respond to all calls in Pittsburgh. CMU so helpfully illustrated this recently with their “map of Pittsburgh.” Do you notice what neighborhoods are missing?
From the Post-Gazette
Yup. All the predominantly black neighborhoods are erased. This 2020 map could have been created by the police in the 1960s, since police wouldn’t respond to calls in the Hill District, Garfield, Homewood, Hazlewood, etc. Those communities had to organize in different ways, such as the Freedom House branch in the Hill District.
At the same time a doctor at the Pitt School of Medicine had a revolutionary idea; what if instead of care starting at the hospital, care started the moment emergency responders arrived? Ambulances existed, but were not wide spread or even public. You could call a private company but only the richest could afford that.
This doctor, Peter Safar, noticed that the transportation of patients often ended up causing injuries. Sometimes those injuries could be fatal. He went around to various organizations in Pittsburgh to get his idea funded. No universities wanted to get involved. The city itself said they could not afford it. And the police said they were already stretched thin and could not be trained.
Dr. Safar then went to Freedom House. Together they came up with an excellent agreement: Freedom House would hire untrained workers from the Hill District and Dr. Safar would train them to be medical professionals on the road; the first paramedics.
Freedom House Paramedics and University of Pittsburgh physicians. From the University of Pittsburgh
But things were not easy. Call centers would not call the Freedom House Ambulance Service. Rather they would call the police. So FHAS paramedics used police scanners to find out where medical help was needed and responded to calls.
By 1969, after one year of operating, Dr. Safar claimed that the FHAS paramedics saved 200 lives due to medical care at the scene. The paramedics came to be known for their excellent service and high knowledge of the medical profession.
Freedom House Paramedics responding to a call. From the University of Pittsburgh
Their success was not enough to save the organization, however. In the early 1970s Mayor Flaherty, a vocal racist, tried to stop the Ambulance Service whenever he could. In 1974 he announced the city would create their own ambulance service, staffed by only white paramedics. This funding came from the police budget, since police would now respond to less emergency calls.
In 1975 the Freedom House Ambulance Service closed, and their story was mostly forgotten by the public. Cities across the nation and globe adopted the paramedic model, and it is core to most emergency services world wide.
This month Mayor Peduto announced he was increasing the police budget again in Pittsburgh, rather than reallocating it to social services. When he started in 2013 the police budget was $71.5 million. This year it is $115 million. What would it look like if he funded social services instead?
Even done in the most racist way possible, defunding the police in 1974 saved lives. Imagine what that would look like if we were not racist about it. Not only could we have prevented the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and even Antwon Rose II, but we could also save the lives of those on the spectrum who police kill each year.
With her Master’s of Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh, my mom supervises social workers in a local hospital. She has spent years training how to properly respond to a variety of situations. Before working at the hospital she met her patients on the street and would respond to what they needed. Never once did she need a gun.
That isn’t to say it is always easy. When situations get violent my mom calls, as she refers to them, the ‘buff social workers.’ These professionals are trained to deescalate situations involving people on the spectrum, with substance abuse, and many more. Sometimes this results in subduing the patient physically. Again, these ‘buff social workers’ do not carry guns.
We as a city, and as a nation, can respond in ways that save lives. The police are just not trained to deal with every emergency situation. What would our cities look like if we had police handle fires without the proper equipment and training? That is how extreme it is to have police officers respond to most emergency calls.
Today we don’t question how helpful paramedics are to our communities. We could be as innovative, and save lives, if only we transfer some funding from the police to other emergency services.
Defunding the police saved lives starting in 1974. Let’s do it again only this time as a full community.