The Montgomery County Council seeks to expand its mobile crisis response unit by almost $600,000 as protesters across the country continue their calls to reallocate police department funding to mental health resources and other social programs. The council unanimously granted preliminary approval to the appropriation of funds on Tuesday.

The county’s Behavioral Health and Crisis Services currently receives approximately $5.5 million to operate a two-person mobile crisis response unit. The additional $592,000 would be used to expand the response team from one to six units across the county, with at least one social worker in each unit. Additionally, the county would deploy mental health professionals instead of police when there is a resident in need of psychological assistance.

According to the council, the plan aims to “reduce the need for police response or [to] assist police in deescalating and addressing from a health and human service perspective situations that arise from an underlying behavioral health issue.”

The money would come out of the county’s $275.4 million general fund for the 2021 fiscal year.

The move comes after at least three instances in which county police shot and killed Black men — all situations Councilmember Tom Hucker, the proposal’s sponsor, believes could have been deescalated by a mental health professional. Hucker recounted the shooting deaths to the council on Tuesday, saying he believed having a mental health professional on the scene could have prevented the deaths.

Hucker pointed to the May death of 30-year-old Finan Berhe, who was shot and killed by an officer who was dispatched following reports of an adult man walking around the parking lot of a townhome community while wielding a large butcher knife. Berhe had reportedly thrown a rock through a resident’s window, asking the people inside to call the police.

Hucker also referenced the shooting death of Robert White, who was shot and killed by an officer last year. The police department’s internal investigation into the incident found that the officer was justified in killing White, who was unarmed. Critics have raised concerns, however, about the department’s ability to conduct a fair investigation into its own officers.

And Hucker noted that 26-year-old Emmanuel Okutuga of Bowie was shot and killed by an officer in 2011 after allegedly assaulting a mall security guard with a sharp object. Protesters have alleged that the officer involved “mistakenly” deleted video footage of the shooting.

“I don’t believe at all that one special appropriation or one policy is going to single-handedly resolve community policing problems or dismantle institutional racism,” Hucker told the council Tuesday. “It’s very much a start on how we reimagine public safety moving forward.”

A public hearing on the proposed appropriation is set for July 7.