A rookie on the force for 3 years in the small town of Griffith, Indiana with a population of less than 17,000, Officer Rick Merschantz and his partner David Borgetti observantly noted the patterns of the 911 calls.

The calls originating from the same addresses yielded the same distressing scenarios – domestic disputes, drug use and possession altercations, and overdose victims. In an effort to decrease the town statistics of overdose deaths and provide a viable solution, Merschantz and Borgetti began to research a fledging program called “Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative or PARRI piloted in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

We will discuss the nuts and bolts of PARRI and how this small town with the big idea of coordinating resources has changed the face of the entire region of Northwest Indiana. Join Dawn Pelc as she welcomes the team that made this possible – Griffith Police Officer Rick Merschantz, Griffith Police social worker and coordinator Erica Rios and IUN/IUPUI Master of Social Work Field Coordinator Jennifer Hippie.

Michael Copps was a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2011, including a stint as acting FCC Chair in 2009. He is currently special advisor for Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative. Michael Copps returned to Tell Somebody to talk about the February, 2015 FCC vote for net neutrality and about media reform generally for the April 9, 2015 edition of the show.

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The April 9, 2013 edition of Tell Somebody is the first of  two shows covering the 2013 National Conference for Media Reform in Denver , Colorado.

We hear from conference attendee Janet Wilson, law professor and past president of the National Lawyers Guild Marjorie Cohn, former FCC commissioner Michael Copps, journalism professor and Free Press co-founder Bob McChesney, and Free Press president & CEO Craig Aaron.

This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. 

Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer. 

You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory.

If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: 

mail@tellsomebody.us 

Twitter: @tellsomebodynow

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On Friday, November 16, 2012, The New America Foundation, www.newamerica.net, hosted an event, Dark Money, Media, and the 2012 Campaign. 

From the New America Foundation website for the event:

The November 13, 2012 edition of Tell Somebody features author and cabdriver Richard Tripp, founder and director of Care of Poor People Inc (COPP Inc) about his upcoming Winter Survival Event to provide food and clothing to the homeless, and former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, currently Common Cause’s Senior Advisor for their Media and Democracy Reform Initiative, responds to a Los Angeles Times article about possible FCC plans to relax media cross-ownership restrictions.

This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio.