The LAPD needs more mental health professionals to help respond to 911 calls, Chief Jim McDonnell told the California Post in an exclusive interview — a tactic mayor-elect Nithya Raman has pledged to support as the two try to bury the hatchet and address the city’s mental-health crisis.
The chief met with Raman Thursday for a “get to know each other” session as they hunted for common ground on policing and public safety, finding a place for agreement on the point that too many cops are wasting their time trying to help out the city’s mentally ill.
McDonnell has said that roughly “one-third” of the LAPD’s 1.45 million calls per year are now for people suffering a mental health crisis, sucking precious police resources into the endless cycle of mental illnessand homelessness plaguing the city.
“The mayor is in alignment with the way we’re doing business, as far as trying to be able to get increased civilianization and expertise to deal with issues such as people experiencing a mental health crisis,” McDonnell told The Post. The chief is trying to hang onto his job after Raman pledged to replace him on the campaign trail.
McDonnell said he’s completely behind the socialist mayor’s plan for “increased civilianization” of the department.
The idea has had support from the rank and file, with the LAPD union first coming out in favor of unarmed responders helping out cops on mental health calls in 2020. Mayor Bass has expanded such effort significantly.
In 2022 Bass began a program called CIRCLE, which stands for Crisis and Incident Response through Community-led Engagement. The 24/7 unarmed response program that deploys trained teams to address non-urgent LAPD calls related to the homeless.
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It’s unclear whether Raman will build on that effort or start something completely new. A spokesman for the mayor-elect didn’t answer questions from the Post.
Raman has said she wants more unarmed crisis response pros accompanying cops on calls as part of her first 100 day public safety plan, which also includes more 911 operators and an LAPD audit.
The LAPD spends “an awful lot” of patrol time dealing with people with mental health issues, as the police are the ones called when somebody is threatening someone, McDonnell has said.
Fed-up residents have flooded the police with complaints about vagrants acting out at homeless encampments, which now threaten almost every part of the city. There are now about 72,000 homeless in LA County, according to the LA Homeless Services Authority.
With the understaffed LAPD responding to so many 911 calls about homeless people in psychological distress, Raman is looking for ways to take some of that burden off the cops and give it to mental health professionals.
McDonnell agrees that psychologists or social workers are better suited to the task.
“We do the very best we can with police officers, but certainly where we have mental evaluation teams that go out, where we pair up a police officer with a mental health clinician, the results are obviously going to be better,” he said.
Unarmed responders have support from rank-and-file officers, with the LAPD union coming out in support of the idea in 2020. A year later, the union issued a reform paper stating: “It makes all the sense in the world to have a mental health clinician dispatched to assist someone in crisis as long as it is safe.”
Los Angeles Police Protective League spokesman Tom Saggau said it’s a smart move, particularly since the city’s facing a dire shortage of officers.
Los Angeles Police Protective League spokesman Tom Saggau said it’s a smart move, especially since the city’s facing a dire shortage of officers with fewer than 8,500 sworn members on the force, a historically low number.
“We can absolutely commit to this,” said Saggau. “Especially with the number of police officers that we have now, it just makes complete sense.”
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