Conversation and Compassion –
Dec. 9, 2019 – Larsen stays put, barely looking up from her laptop as Goncalves approaches the man. Goncalves asks for his ID and reads his license number into the radio—no outstanding warrants. The two stand on the sidewalk, an arm’s distance apart, their faces neutral. Then, the man adjusts his hat, pulls up his jeans, and heads down the sidewalk. “He’s on his way,” Goncalves says into the radio. “Clear.” … Goncalves climbs back in his cruiser and shifts into drive. No one says a word.
The exchange feels unremarkable, and that, Larsen argues, is what’s so remarkable about it. She isn’t Goncalves’ partner but a “co-responder”—a clinical social worker embedded in the police department to offer help to people rather than tossing them in jail. Until recently, that man, or anyone suspected of using drugs, might have ended up in cuffs. But now, Larsen trusts that officers will take a different approach—so much so that in April, when I accompanied Larsen on a Friday evening shift, she didn’t feel the need to jump out or really even monitor Goncalves’ interaction. “Rather than treating him like he was a criminal nodding off on the side of the road, on a main street, he had a conversation,” Larsen tells me later. “Basically assessed for safety and moved him along.”
