Antioch launches mental health crisis response team named after Angelo Quinto

ANTIOCH — Isabella Collins vividly remembers the cold late December day when her brother Angelo, overcome with anxiety and paranoia, spun into a mental health crisis, prompting her to call 911.

But the responding officers were not intervention specialists and were ill-equipped to deal with a mental health emergency. Within minutes, the Antioch officers physically restrained Angelo Quinto and he soon went limp on the hardwood floor, his family said. Three days later the 30-year-old Navy veteran died in a hospital.

“I asked if there was somebody else that I could have called and a lot of people, everybody, said that I did the right thing,” Collins said. “But I’ve often said that the right thing wouldn’t have killed my brother.”

Collins, speaking to a crowd Monday at a city of Antioch press conference on mental health emergency calls, said she has since regretted making that call.

“It’s a regret that I will live with forever,” she said.

At the time there were no other options for the then-18-year-old Antioch teen.

But today – more than two years later – there is another option, and Antioch officials gathered this week to celebrate it: the launch of the city’s first 24/7 non-police mobile crisis response team. It is being called the Angelo Quinto Community Response Team in honor of the Antioch man who died on Dec. 26, 2020, three days after his encounter with police.

Tasha Johnson, public safety and community resources director, told those gathered outside City Hall that the city is committed to ensuring that public resources are available to all community members.

“Today we launch an important pillar of this department that brings yet another critical service to our community,” she said standing beside the new mobile crisis response team van.

The program will cost $1.8 million annually and initially will be paid from $3.6 million in American Rescue Plan Act monies the City Council allocated for it last April.

Headed by the Felton Institute of Alameda, the team will relieve Antioch police from nonviolent, non-life-threatening, low-level calls that they normally would answer.

Al Gilbert, president of the Felton Institute, applauded city leaders for doing something to improve the response to mental health crises.

“I want to thank the city of Antioch for being one of the first cities in the country to take immediate action to try and get support for people in their community who are struggling with behavioral health needs,” he said. “We decided Antioch was the model that we wanted to be a part of as a national model for how a mental health response should be responded to in the community.”

Gilbert said his team will be responding to behavioral health needs with “all of the resources that we bring to bear.”

“The team knows the community, they know the people, they know where the issues are going to come up and they can focus our time and attention on making sure that we are proactive in terms of how we engage issues that are going on in the community.”

Gilbert said the trained team members also will follow up with individuals to support them and connect them with other local health organizations.

Proposed by Councilwoman Monica E. Wilson in 2020, the Antioch mobile crisis response team is the first of its kind in Contra Costa County and one of only a few 24/7 city programs in the Bay Area. The county is now also developing a similar  program called A3 – Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime – to provide emergency behavioral health support.

“It’s a great day,” Wilson said. “Today I stand here in awe of the fact that my colleagues and I were able to bring a mental health response team to the city of Antioch.”

“This will ensure that a mental health breakdown is treated as that, a mental health breakdown, not a crime that requires the full force of a police department,” she added.

Antioch Police Chief Steve Ford, who also attended the event, said he supported the mobile crisis team “without question.”

“It’s gonna help,” he said. “There’s there’s a lot of low-level, mental health-related calls that we shouldn’t be going to, we don’t have the expertise or the training to go to, and so this will be a huge help in terms of freeing us up for more serious-related calls it that we need to go to.”

“We’ve embraced this from the very beginning,” he added.

Mayor Lamar Thorpe also expressed his support, apologizing to the Quinto/Collins family for not understanding the gravity of the situation and the need to address community concerns early on. He added his meeting with the family months after Angelo’s death cemented his understanding of their pain and what needed to happen.

“Angela Quinto’s death changed the course of history for our city in more ways than one,” Thorpe said, pointing to the police reforms that came afterward, the apology to the AAPI community and changes in response to 911 calls.

“It all happened because of this moment back in December of 2020.”

Thorpe then thanked the family “for having the courage to stand here with us today.”

“There are no words that could ever heal the pain that you’re experiencing,” he said. “But I hope this gesture here helps you understand that your city is listening to you. Your city sees you. We value you and we respect you.”

The new crisis team option could have saved Angelo, his stepson, Robert Collins said, noting he is glad the city took meaningful action to help those suffering mental health crises. His stepson’s death was later determined by a forensic pathologist to be a result of “excited delirium,” a controversial diagnosis that is primarily used in cases involving police force, which the family disputes. The police officers who restrained Quinto were not charged in his death.

“I’m 99 percent sure that if we had this back then (when Angelo had a mental health crisis), it would have helped a great deal,” Collins said.

Collins went on to say people will be judged not on how they treat popular leaders, the rich or others from whom they could gain something.

“We are judged by how we treat children, the elderly, the sick and the poor. This program will help us as a people to de-escalate (crises), to treat others with respect, to promote civil rights for the community.”

“This is much more than a gesture, it may be a new beginning,” he  said.