DANVILLE, Va. (WDBJ) – Danville Police, the Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Office, and the Danville-Pittsylvania County Community Services Board launched a Marcus Alert Co-response Program Wednesday. The program will expand how the city and county respond to calls involving people in crisis due to mental health, substance abuse, or developmental disabilities.
Under the program, a co-response team made up of a law enforcement officer and a mental health clinician can be dispatched to certain calls in Danville and Pittsylvania County. Agencies said the approach is designed to meet people “where they are” and connect them with appropriate resources.
The Marcus Alert System was created in 2020. It’s named for Marcus David Peters who was killed by police in Richmond while he was having a mental health crisis in 2018.
Crisis Intervention Team Coordinator Casey Allen with the Danville-Pittsylvania County Community Services Board said law enforcement has typically responded to calls for service, and in the past, fire or rescue often responded as well.
Allen said the Danville Police Department is “100% CIT certified,” referring to Crisis Intervention Team training for officers responding to mental health or substance use crises. He said the Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Office is “right around 80% certified.”
Allen said the co-response team can be sent to a call “to do an on-site evaluation of the individual who is in crisis, to determine what type of resources they would need.”
“We’re going to try to meet people where they are to get them where they need to be,” Allen said.
Allen also described four call levels that the state agencies DBHDS and DCJS have identified for the program.
A level one call could be handled through a phone call, Allen said, including situations where a 911 dispatcher transfers a caller to 988 if the dispatcher determines the person needs to speak with someone “in their mental health capacity.”
“The 9-8-8 dispatchers are professional clinicians on staff there to do an over-the-phone assessment to determine if that individual needs someone to respond to their location, or if they just need a phone call and resources provided for them that way,” Allen said.
Allen said level two calls could involve mobile crisis response, where 988 dispatches a mobile crisis unit to a person’s location “to sit down with them, do an assessment, evaluate them to figure out what type of help they need, what type of resources they need in the community.”
For a level three call, Allen said, “that’s a specific co-response,” with a law enforcement officer and clinician responding together in the same vehicle, “to do an evaluation, to determine resources, and what type of help that individual needs.”
For a level four call, which Allen described as “much higher risk,” he said a 911 dispatch would send police, fire, and rescue. After the situation is de-escalated, Allen said, “the scene commander can call in co-response if they need to,” and the team would be available to respond and “do an assessment.”
Danville Police Chief Chris Wiles said the key difference in the program is the co-response model and the ability to have a clinician and officer available together early in a call.
Wiles said the first seconds and minutes after dispatch are critical, and that the majority of the calls analyzed were in the higher-tier categories.
“In the analysis of those calls for service and those kinds of situations, the vast majority of those types of calls for service were in those higher-tier categories, level threes and level fours, a situation where it would be unreasonable to send a clinician by themselves or even a couple of clinicians without some kind of law enforcement support,” Wiles said.
Wiles said calls can come in with limited information, sometimes as a disorder call or someone on the side of the street yelling, and first responders may not know what they are encountering.
Wiles said the program allows a team to be immediately available to be dispatched directly to those calls for service that clearly have or likely have a mental health factor on them.
He said clinicians may provide guidance even if they are not directly engaging in a high-risk situation.
“Just having that clinician, even if they’re in the background providing guidance and providing helpful information to stabilize until law enforcement and fire and rescue stabilize the scene, they might not be actually directly engaging in a high-risk environment, but they’re right there providing that valuable feedback,” Wiles said.
Wiles said the program’s structure means the team is available from the start.
“From the start, from the dispatch, and on the scene arriving immediately, as soon as law enforcement can respond to a scene, you have a law enforcement officer and a mental health clinician, and that’s, again, the power of the Marcus Program. It actually puts them, like Melanie said, where they are, meets folks where they are,” Wiles said.
Allen said the focus across call levels is de-escalation.
“The primary focus, also, is de-escalation,” Allen said. “So, whatever the level is, the officers, as well as the clinicians, are highly trained in the ability to de-escalate, if possible.”
Allen said responding officers will still look like law enforcement and have the same equipment, but will have additional training, including CIT and Mental Health First Aid.
Melanie Tosh, director of behavioral health services for the Danville-Pittsylvania Community Services Board, described the difference between clinicians and peer recovery specialists.
“A peer recovery specialist is an individual who has lived experience with either a mental health diagnosis or a substance use diagnosis,” Tosh said.
Tosh said peer recovery specialists are in recovery and receive training to become certified to provide services.
“Oftentimes, a peer is able to connect to individuals in a way that a licensed professional counselor or law enforcement is not able to do,” Tosh said.
988 is the national suicide prevention hotline. Allen said the call center used by the program is in Johnson City, Tennessee.
“They are set up with professionals that are answering the phones, mental health professionals, who go through an extensive questionnaire to assess the individual who’s making a phone call, or a family member who’s making a phone call for someone else,” Allen said.
Allen said the goal is to determine whether the caller needs more detailed assistance, a mobile crisis unit response, or a transfer back to 911 for a higher-level call.
Pittsylvania County Sheriff Michael Taylor said early planning included allowing the Marcus Alert officers to have jurisdiction in both the city and county.
“We have to be authorized,” Taylor said. “And so, the legislature saw their worth in that. And so, they have amended the code section to allow these officers to have jurisdiction in both, the authority to act in both jurisdictions.”
Taylor said the change was important for liability and coverage, including workers’ compensation.
Allen said similar programs in the region include Highlands, New River Valley, and Blue Ridge. He said Highlands CSB was activated in 2022 and serves as a regional liaison.
Allen said other programs have shown reductions in use of force and injuries.
“The reduction of the use of force by law enforcement is great. The number of individuals being injured during a time like that, of taking the person into custody for treatment or for an arrest, has reduced greatly. And then the amount, the number of officers who have been injured in the line of duty, has reduced greatly,” Allen said.
The Marcus Alert Team will be on duty 7 days a week from 8 am to 11 pm. The hope is to eventually secure funding to add more teams and have 24/7 staffing.
Copyright 2026 WDBJ. All rights reserved.