DENVER — They are trained to help save lives when people call the state’s 988 hotline, but several crisis specialists claim they were forced to listen to deviant callers who sexually harassed them and slung racial slurs, according to a lawsuit they filed this month.
Six women are named as plaintiffs in a civil rights lawsuit they filed against Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners in U.S. District Court Colorado.
Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners is a nonprofit organization that handled crisis phone calls in Colorado. Over the past two years, RMCP staffed the state’s 988 hotline on behalf of the Behavior Health Administration, until this past weekend when a different company took over the hotline.
The crisis specialists claim they suffered from anxiety and PTSD because RMCP forced them to remain on the line with “sex grat” callers even though the callers were known abusers of the hotline and were frequently allowed to call.
“Often referred to as 'sex grat callers,' such persons would call and seek out a female voice with whom they would attempt to engage in implicitly or explicitly sexualized conversations in order to achieve sexual satisfaction,” their lawsuit says.
"It was very uncomfortable. I felt like I was trying to do the best I could and to make sure they weren't suicidal,” said one of the crisis specialists who spoke to 9NEWS.
“It was very anxiety-inducing because we knew them. They were frequent callers,” said another crisis manager.
The women's attorneys, Iris Halpern of the Rathod Mohamedbhai Law Firm and Raymond Bryant of Civil Rights Litigation Group, said that policies within RMCP were too protective of “sex grat” callers.
"It was widely known who was calling, when they were repeat callers, the type of conduct that they were engaging in, and the organization, Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners, did virtually nothing,” Halpern said.
Halpern said her clients’ civil rights were violated because RMCP allowed racial and sexual harassment by a third party to persist.
Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners and the Behavioral Health Administration would not comment about the lawsuit and cited the pending litigation.
Earlier this year, RMCP announced the layoffs of 300 staffers because the state chose Arizona-based company Solari Crisis and Human Services to take over the hotline. The handoff was finalized last week.
A spokesperson for Solari told 9NEWS their employees are “empowered” to hang up on inappropriate callers when necessary.
“Solari has developed policies and procedures based upon Vibrant Emotional Health’s National 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline guidelines for responding to abusive behavior during 988 calls," a Solari spokesperson said over email. "Staff members are empowered to disconnect calls when individuals engage in inappropriate or abusive behavior. If callers continue to engage in such behavior, Solari can limit the callers’ access to the hotline and redirect those callers to staff members specially trained to deal with inappropriate or abusive behaviors. These processes were specifically designed with the wellbeing of our staff in mind."
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