The Portland Police Bureau’s highly specialized Behavioral Health Unit consists of five officer-clinician teams whose job it is to find and try to help people nearly everyone else is busy avoiding.
“We are at the intersection of two nearly broken systems,” Sgt. Josh Silverman told The Oregonian/OregonLive last spring, referring to the state’s overloaded justice system and fraying social and health care safety net.
“If our job is to connect the dots and there aren’t enough dots to connect, that’s a problem,” said Silverman, who oversees the Behavioral Health Unit…