Defund the police? Here's an example that you're benefiting from right now. 1/9

Until the 70s, ambulance services were generally run by local police and fire departments. There was no law requiring medical training beyond basic first-aid and in many cases the assignment of ambulance duty was used as a form of punishment. 2/9

As you can imagine, throwing people with medical emergencies into the back of a paddy wagon produced less than spectacular health outcomes. Now imagine how much worse it became when disgruntled white police officers were demoted to ambulance duty in black neighborhoods. 3/9

The response was so problematic that in 1967, black leaders in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, created Freedom House Ambulance Services and approached Peter Safar, a doctor at the University of Pittsburgh, who had lost his 12-year-old daughter to an acute asthma crisis. 4/9

With a shared purpose of improving emergency medical response, Safar trained 25 black men from that neglected community––many of whom did not have a high school diploma––as emergency medical technicians, skilled in this new thing called CPR. 5/9

With two donated police vehicles, Freedom House Ambulance Services began to save lives at such a rate, that they became the gold standard for emergency response training in the US and the model for EMTs we now take for granted in every community. 6/9

Freedom House paramedics were so dynamic in their ability to respond to the critically ill that the Pittsburgh police often called them for high acuity cases in white neighborhoods. 7/9

Despite the success of FHAS, police and fire departments resisted retraining their personnel, so the city reallocated funds to create a separate EMT service. (A new mayor cut funding to Freedom House in 1975 and seized their assets, but that's another story). 8/9

When people think defunding the police will lead to anarchy, they’re not understanding that change rarely happens from within, and that resources reallocated to community-based services can not only improve neglected neighborhoods, but create innovations that help us all. 9/9

Here's a trailer for a documentary about Freedom House Ambulance Service. #KnowYourHistory