Standard responses to encounters with persons with mental illness have included better training for general patrol officers and, in larger police departments, deployment of specialist officers or teams. A full-fledged community policing approach might offer greater potential for improving services and avoiding use-of-force tragedies. This article discusses a community policing approach that emphasizes collaboration, partnerships, prevention, and problem solving, and relies primarily upon generalist officers permanently assigned to neighborhoods. However, this kind of proactive policing raises privacy issues. Unless a person with mental illness is under some kind of court jurisdiction, the police might lack any legal basis for checking on him or her, and police visits might not be welcomed by clients, advocates, or family members. Police and others need to agree on where to draw the line on intrusive and invasive police initiatives. The article suggests that, in general, it would be in everyone's best interests for beat patrol officers to be as familiar as possible with persons likely to experience mental health emergencies, to enhance both prevention and effective intervention. Note, references