Tulsa hopes sending mental health pros to 911 calls will save lives. We rode along.

They’re able to tailor their approach to meet cultural needs. Some of their training includes learning about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Juneteenth and implicit bias. They also study how mental health issues may affect the elderly. 

Therapist Amanda Moran, Officer Ryan Lincoln, Officer Tyler Thomas discuss their roles on the Community Response Team. Credit: Kimberly Marsh / The Oklahoma Eagle

As Moran and crew head to the scene, a cruiser travels ahead of them to make sure the caller isn’t a threat to anyone. But she plans to lead the conversation. 

When she arrives, Moran gingerly approaches the caller to ask how he feels and what’s happening in his life. He tells her he feels unsafe, has nowhere to go and wants to reconnect with his mother. 

They talk for a half hour before he agrees to go to a crisis center, where he can shower and rest until someone in his family can get to him. 

But he has to ride to the center in a patrol car — and police protocol calls for handcuffs. As he becomes agitated, Lincoln and Moran assure him he’s not in trouble. 

Moran tells The Eagle that’s often the difficult part of the job. 

“I know that it might not make sense to a lot of people as to why we can’t just let them ride (without cuffs), especially if they’ve been really cooperative,” she said. “It’s … for the officers’ safety, but also for the individual’s safety as well.”

Officer Ryan Lincoln monitors a 911 call in November 2025. Credit: Kimberly Marsh / The Oklahoma Eagle

A personal desire to help

For both Lincoln and Moran, the decision to join the team was inspired by their lived experiences. 

“I have a brother who committed suicide,” Lincoln said. “I have a shared experience with some of the citizens that … have been in a similar circumstance.”

He joined the force 14 years ago working with the Gilcrease Division. A year ago, Lincoln started training for the CRT.

Moran is a member of the Family & Children’s Services Community Outreach Psychiatric Emergency Services (COPES) staff. She’s worked with people experiencing mental illness for 13 years and had a loved one who was killed by police.

“I don’t know what would have happened that day had there been a mental health professional there,” she said. “It has driven the work that I do every single day.”

Lincoln’s partner, Officer Tyler Thomas, has a degree in psychology. His academic passion for the humanities drew him to the team. 

“We’re always trying to improve our response to calls, and how we approach any call we’re given, but there’s been an exceptional push in the mental health world,” Thomas said.

Travis Potts has worked with the Tulsa Fire Department for 17 years and wants residents to know the CRT is client-centered and bases its responses on the individual situation.

“(We have) the opportunity to start doing things differently,” Potts said, “to not be in a situation where we have to get back in service right this second because we’ve got the next call. We try to take a lot of time to really get to figure that out.”

Preventing the next Terence Crutcher

Tiffany Crutcher believes alternative crisis response may have changed the fate of her brother, Terence, who was killed in 2016 by Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby. He was unarmed, standing in the street next to his stalled vehicle, when Shelby responded to the 911 call that turned fatal.

“He was in trouble,” Crutcher said. ”If he would have had a Family & Children’s Services representative there that night at that scene … my brother would still be alive.” 

As founder of the Terence Crutcher Foundation, Tiffany championed Tulsa’s alternative response system. The foundation surveyed some 55,000 residents across the city and found 68% of them would call 911 in an emergency. 

However, many of them said they’d prefer a paramedic and mental health practitioner to respond to their call, rather than a law enforcement official. A fifth said their first call would be to friends or family.

Moran said calling familiar people has its place. 

“It’s great when neighborhoods and communities watch out for each other. They’ve built the rapport,” she said. 

But having a trained mental health professional who goes on the call, with or without police, is an additional advocate for the person in crisis.

Tiffany Crutcher said this is a good first step, but she and the foundation are pushing for a sustained model that is people-focused and centered on a restorative conversation that doesn’t lead to jail or violence.

“What we feel we should build is a 24/7 comprehensive alternative response model with culturally relevant responders,” she said. “In order to do that, it takes the people, people across the city, to speak the same language and to demand that.”

To learn more about alternative response performance and results, see Joe Tomlinson’s Tulsa Flyer story Mental health experts started taking calls at Tulsa’s 911 center published on Oct. 27.

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