Call to Mind: The Fifth Branch
Illustration by Luke Mills
Over the past decade, police in America have shot and killed 1,939 people who were in the middle of a mental health crisis. That’s 20% of all police killings in that time. Those deaths helped fuel a movement. Instead of armed police, more than half of the country’s largest cities now send specially trained social workers and EMTs. This new generation of first responders handle 911 calls involving mental illness, substance use disorders or suicidal thoughts.
Call to Mind: The Fifth Branch is a special program made in partnership with the Tradeoffs podcast. This episode takes listeners to Durham, North Carolina, to meet people who have reimagined the city’s crisis-response system.
PRODUCTION TEAM
Angela Davis
Angela Davis has more than 30 years of experience reporting and anchoring throughout the country. She’s currently the host of the award-winning program MPR News with Angela Davis. Her weekday talk show covers a wide variety of topics, including racial disparities, mental health, education, economic issues and the climate crisis.
Jessica Bari
Call to Mind’s senior producer, is an award-winning producer and journalist. With an extensive focus in health news and programming—her work has been on national and regional public radio stations, PBS, Discovery channel, History channel and SiriusXM’s Doctor Radio channel.
Stephen Smith
Stephen Smith is Call to Mind's senior editor. He's a veteran journalist and the co-founder of APM Reports, the long-running documentary and investigative unit of American Public Media. Smith has reported on mental health, human rights, race relations, international justice and American history.
Ryan Levi is the managing editor for Tradeoffs, helping lead the newsroom’s editorial strategy and guide its coverage on its flagship podcast, digital articles, newsletters and live events. Ryan spent six years as a reporter and producer for Tradeoffs covering Medicaid, mental health, addiction and health technology, including artificial intelligence. Ryan’s work has won numerous national awards and been featured on NPR, PBS NewsHour and The Marshall Project. Ryan lives in Washington D.C.
Dan is the founder and executive editor of Tradeoffs, setting the vision for the organization’s journalism and strategy. Before Tradeoffs, he was the senior health care reporter at Marketplace and spent 11 years at New Hampshire Public Radio. He got his start in journalism at the Chicago Reporter, an investigative journal that examines race and class disparities in the Chicago area. Dan’s work has earned numerous national awards, including the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi investigative reporting award. He is based in Philadelphia.