Troy receives funding for new Threat Assessment and Management (TAM) team
TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) –The Troy Police Department receiving federal funding for a new Threat Assessment and Management team known as TAM, to prevent domestic terrorism. This comes after Governor Hochul’s Executive Order 18 That was signed into law just days after the mass shooting in Buffalo on May 14 of this.
On November 1, the Troy Police Department received $100,000 in funding from a grant provided by the Department of Homeland security. This will help the Police to join with community businesses, schools and agencies that deal with mental health to help prevent dangers when it comes to local, domestic terrorism.
Troy will now be joining Monroe and Niagara County’s along with the city of Buffalo to receive the first from a disbursement of the 10-million-dollar grant. Assistant Chief of Police Steven Barker sits down to discuss the new team’s role within the community.
“Our grant award is specific to target violence prevention which could include the active shooter incident have been in a workplace or could be workplace violence or it could be hate motivated crimes,” said Barker.
Barker says it will involve the entire community
“It's a collection of individuals that exist within the city from various disciplines or various job types and various areas that our community existed we just need to share the information connect the needing those needing resources the most to those that can provide the resources,” said Barker.
The TAM team will incorporate all officers and will be headed by lead detective. Barker says officers are 90% trained in various methods of mental health calls already.
“Our lead detective Will oversee a lot of it but we'll also include not only our field Intelligence Officers which are an officer that manages the intelligence sharing within the department with other law enforcement agencies, but we also have a new mental health unit,” Barker said.
The team will be better equipped to handle mental health crisis calls by maintaining an already working relationship with city groups to combat the issue, Barker says this will boost effectiveness in managing crisis.
In an effort to get to the core of the violence before it occurs, city officials telling me the new team and how it will make Troy successful in the new program.
“The TAM funding will allow us to build those coalitions that create those avenues of communication, share information. [Also] Paint that picture before an incident occurs and hopefully give us the opportunity to head it off,” said Mayor Patrick Madden.
“These monies will even go further because we're not starting at point “A”, so you know I'm thrilled I believe we're ahead of the curve,” said City Council President Carmella Mantello.
Barker tells me the team should be fully operational by Jan 2023.