Compromises between the Cleveland City Council members who sponsored the legislation known as Tanisha’s Law and Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration helped get the bill moving this week after more than a year of delays. Council’s Safety Committee passed the bill unanimously after about two hours of negotiations across the table.
The original version of Tanisha’s Law proposed establishing a new city department to oversee crisis response, or how 911 dispatchers and first responders handle calls about people in the midst of a mental health crisis. The legislation is named for Tanisha Anderson, who died in police custody in 2014 at age 37.
The Bibb administration opposed creating a new department, but between the Safety Committee’s December meeting and Wednesday, the parties hammered out the broad strokes of a largely bureaucratic compromise: The bill now calls for a Bureau of Community Crisis Response within the Division of Emergency Medical Services. The bureau would be led by a deputy commissioner serving under EMS Commissioner Orlando Wheeler.
EMS is part of the Department of Public Safety, which also includes the divisions of police, fire and animal care and control.
“Democracy is not always the cleanest process,” said Council Member Charles Slife after the meeting. Slife co-sponsored the bill in 2024 with Council Members Stephanie Howse-Jones and former member Rebecca Maurer.
What matters, Slife said, is ensuring that people in crisis “are getting the appropriate level of care they need.” Crisis response includes both co-response, in which mental health professionals accompany police officers on calls; and care response, which does not involve officers. Care responders can also follow up with people after an incident to ensure that they can access the services they need.
Cleveland police are already getting high marks for co-response from the independent team that monitors the city’s progress under the 2015 consent decree. Bibb and council members have both said they want to expand care response beyond the pilot program, which was limited to two ZIP codes.
Howse-Jones questioned the administration’s request to strike a line from the bill stating that Tanisha Anderson “would likely be alive today with these policies in place.” A law department official at the meeting said it “reads like a statement of fact.” Council President Blaine Griffin said he too was concerned about that line because it could “undercut a settled lawsuit or open the city up to a new one.”
The city settled a lawsuit brought by Anderson’s family in 2017 for $2.25 million.
The amended bill now states: “The city wishes to honor Tanisha Anderson, a beloved mother, daughter, sister, niece and resident of Cleveland, by putting in place these policies.”
Slife said that council’s Finance Committee will take up the bill on Jan. 26. If that committee also passes it, the last stop will be a vote by the full council.
