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Let's Talk New Mexico

Let's Talk public safety and alternatives to policing

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In the summer of 2020, amid protests and calls to defund police departments ringing out across the nation, mayor Tim Keller announced Albuquerque Community Safety, a whole new department to be dispatched through 911 emergency services to calls involving mental health, addiction, or other issues that don’t require traditional police. A team of mental health professionals go to scenes instead of, or alongside other emergency services. It’s been operating for a little over a year and it’s already expanding, as is a similar program in Santa Fe.

This week on Let’s Talk New Mexico we’re talking about the idea of expanding public safety beyond armed officers or SWAT teams and we want to hear from you! Have you encountered these alternative responders? Did you call 911 to get a hold of them? Email us at letstalk@KUNM.org or call in live during the show at (505) 277-5866

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Daniel Montaño
Daniel Montaño, a part-time reporter, and occasional host of Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Let's Talk New Mexico since 2021, is a born and bred Burqueño who first started with KUNM about two decades ago, as a production assistant while he was in high school. During the intervening years, he studied journalism at UNM, lived abroad, fell in and out of love, conquered here and there, failed here and there, and developed a taste for advocating for human rights.
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