The Brief

The Los Angeles Police Department has said for decades it was doing more to de-escalate confrontations with people struggling with mental illness, but an LAist analysis has found little change in recent years.

Since 2017, 31% of people shot at by police were perceived by officers to be struggling with some kind of mental illness, according to LAPD annual use-of-force reports.

And that percentage has remained largely steady for years, even as initiatives to reduce those encounters have been funded and deployed.

In many of its own reports, LAPD officials cite “tactical de-escalation training” and specially trained response teams as ways to reduce the potential for violence and better serve the community. The department was one of the first in the nation to pair mental health workers with police. But L.A. leaders, including City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who has been vocal about the shootings, acknowledge the city’s investments so far aren’t nearly enough to meet current needs.

"We continue to see that alternate crisis response teams are not funded at the levels needed to support Angelenos experiencing mental health crises,” Hernandez said in a statement to LAist. “We will continue to see these preventable shootings unless we invest in community based mental health services and alternate crisis response teams at the scale needed at both the City and County level.”

LAPD’s Mental Health Evaluation Unit sends teams — made up of a police officer and a clinician from the county’s mental health department — to thousands of mental health-related calls a year, but the program remains understaffed, according to department authorities.

Then-Police Chief Michel Moore said earlier this year that the program known as SMART, which stands for Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team, was responding to “less than a third” of mental health-related calls.

Michel Moore

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Courtesy of LAPD

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He told the city’s Police Commission that SMART, which had 19 clinicians as of last March, would require at least another 15-30 to meet current needs.

LAPD officials could not say how many times in the last seven years a SMART was sent to incidents in which police fired on a suspect. In response to a Public Records Act request from LAist, the department said it conducted a search and “no records responsive to your request were located.”

Police officials did respond to LAist’s request for data for this story, but did not make themselves available for interviews.

By the numbers

The Police Department releases shooting data annually on incidents in which someone was injured or killed. Last year, there were 34 police shootings in the city, 12 of which involved a person the department said was “perceived to suffer from a mental illness and/or a mental health crisis.”

LAist asked the department for data over several years. Here’s what it showed:

• Between 2017 and 2023, 31% of the shootings by police involved a person perceived by the officers to have mental health issues or who was experiencing a mental health crisis. (The department has not specified in its data how many of those were fatal.)
• The most shootings in that time frame happened in 2021, when there were 37 during the calendar year, 15 of which involved someone dealing with mental illness. That’s 41% of all shootings that year. 
• The lowest number was in 2019 when four of 26 people — 15% — shot at by L.A. police were perceived to be dealing with mental health issues.

Experts on police use of force have long said the mere presence of a police officer or sheriff’s deputy at a scene where someone is in a mental health crisis can escalate the potential danger for all involved. And they note that many people living with mental health issues don’t get the help they need before a crisis occurs.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 20 adults in the U.S. experience serious mental illness each year. About 65% of adults in the U.S. received treatment for serious mental illness in 2021, the most recent year for which the data was available.

Moore, who retired in January, has said one of the biggest challenges for the city, as well as the county, is an insufficient number of inpatient and outpatient care resources for people living with mental illness.

Police shootings involving people in crisis are not unique to Los Angeles, but the city does have unique challenges, including a population of more than 3.8 million residents and a growing homelessness problem.

The 2023 homeless count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found that 25% of unhoused people in L.A. County self-reported experiencing a severe mental illness. That’s up from 24% from the previous year's count.

In its latest year-end use-of-force report, LAPD said 38% — 13 of 34 — of the people officers shot at were experiencing homelessness. It’s unclear what percentage of those people were perceived to be dealing with mental illness.

Calls for more training, more clinicians

For many people, calling the police might seem like the only option in times of crisis — particularly when someone is armed with a gun or other object that could be used as a weapon.

That’s why mental health advocates and law enforcement leaders across the country have called for departments to require more training in de-escalation techniques.

In a 2022 Harvard Law review blog post, Fred Vars, a mental health law professor at the University of Alabama, referenced an incident more than 13 years ago that he called “the most dangerous moment of my life.” He was having a psychotic episode, one he said he couldn’t fully remember except for the outline of a police officer in the doorway of his apartment.

The incident resolved peacefully, but Vars noted that if he had brandished a weapon or resisted arrest, he might be dead. He admitted he was “seriously impaired” at the time, but not dangerous, and that the interaction ended “exactly as it should have” — with him in an ambulance en route to a hospital.

“The most important thing I’ve learned from years of cycling into and out of depression is that it always gets better,” Vars wrote. “But recovery for many is only possible if they, like me, survive potentially fatal interactions with police.”

In many incidents he’s reviewed, Timothy Williams, a use-of-force expert who spent 30 years with LAPD, said officers who don’t have the requisite training “precipitate the violence in the approach they use.” He said he hopes to see more patience from officers and “reverence for life.”

“You can’t go in there like a cowboy and exacerbate a problem that could be de-escalated,” he said.

He said he’s seen success stories in which officers kept a substantial amount of physical distance between themselves and the person in crisis for as long as possible. He also said he’s seen officers take their time, slowing things down, to keep a suspect calm.

LAPD officials have pointed out that not all of their interactions with people in crisis end badly. Last August, officers in San Pedro successfully detained a military veteran in his 60s, who was armed with a knife.

A team from the Mental Evaluation Unit arrived on scene, according to the department. An officer who had completed mental health intervention training talked to the man for two hours, and eventually officers were able to get him to drop the knife in exchange for a pack of cigarettes.

Jody Stiger, a retired LAPD sergeant, stressed that it’s important for law enforcement agencies to make de-escalation training part of an ongoing program — not just a one-off.

“Because it’s a perishable skill, officers just need to be reminded of utilizing better tactics when they can,” Stiger said.

LAPD has more than 8,950 sworn officers. The department has said that between 2014 through the end of 2023, nearly 5,500 officers completed training on mental health intervention, focusing on de-escalation techniques. A 2022 year-end report notes that since 2014, all new officers were receiving the training before finishing their probationary year in the field.

Moore said in January that an additional 1,200 department personnel had received de-escalation training using virtual reality headsets and video game-like environments.

He also said the department was continuing to look at additional “less-lethal” tactics, including use of the BolaWrap, a device that launches a weighted cord to subdue people, and Tasers that can be deployed by an officer standing farther away from a target.

LAPD’s Mental Health Evaluation Unit was one of the first in the country to pair police officers with clinicians from the county Department of Mental Health to de-escalate tense situations. It was established in 1993 in the wake of the Rodney King beating.

But department authorities have said the unit is unable to deploy enough SMART units to keep up with the amount of mental health calls received each day. In 2022, for example, more than 70% of radio calls in which a SMART was requested did not receive them, according to a report from the Office of Inspector General.

A fatal shooting in Tarzana  

Last summer, L.A. police responded to 911 calls reporting that a woman was assaulting multiple people with a metal pipe in Tarzana. They caught up with a suspect outside a gas station along Reseda Boulevard.

An officer yelled at the woman — later identified as Jessica Brown — multiple times, telling her to “drop the pipe,” according to body-worn camera video the department released later. She then moved toward the officers with the pipe in her hand, and they shot at her with a gun that fires foam rounds and a Taser, police said.

Within seconds, another officer opened fire — this time with live rounds.

Brown, 35, was mortally wounded. She died at a hospital. Her family has said she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

It’s unclear whether a SMART was dispatched. An LAPD spokesperson contacted earlier this month said they didn’t have that information available.

Bianca Palmer, Brown’s younger sister, questioned why the officers resorted to lethal force without trying again to use other less lethal methods to take her into custody.

“I know that she ... injured multiple people in the process,” Palmer said. “But to resort to just shooting someone multiple times without taking other routes was unnecessary.”

A selfie of Jessica Brown, who was shot and killed by L.A. police during an interaction with officers in Tarzana in July 2023.

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Courtesy of Bianca Palmer

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In an interview with LAist, Palmer recalled her sister and their childhood fondly. When their mother died, leaving behind seven children, Brown became like a second mother to Palmer, who was just 16 years old at the time.

Things changed around the time Brown turned 30, not long before she received her diagnosis, Palmer said. She seemed to lose interest in the things that had mattered to her.

The family didn’t know how to help, but did their best checking in on her.

“We felt helpless,” Palmer said. “In general it was a shock. We’ve never experienced anything like this ever in our lives.”

The shooting is still under review by the Board of Police Commissioners and no determination has been made as to whether the officers’ followed department policy.

Loss of life ‘violent and unnecessary’

Activists and city authorities have been vocal about other shootings from that year.

In January 2023, Mayor Karen Bass, members of the City Council and local activists sharply criticized the Police Department after back-to-back incidents in which officers shot people they perceived to be dealing with a mental health crisis.

In a thread posted online, Hernandez called the loss of life at the hands of officers “violent and unnecessary.”

“We can no longer look away from this crisis in our policing system — it’s long past time that we establish permanent, life-affirming, care-first responses to mental health crises that truly uplift the public’s safety and address the root causes of harm,” the council member said on X, formerly Twitter.

Takar Smith, 45, was fatally shot Jan. 2, 2023, at an apartment in the Westlake neighborhood where he had barricaded himself in a kitchen. Police said his wife had contacted the department to report that Smith violated a restraining order by returning to the residence. She told a dispatcher that Smith had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Smith’s wife said at a news conference days after the shooting that she had been trying to get help for Smith, when he was killed.

A screen shot from the body-worn camera footage of the fatal LAPD shooting of Takar Smith.

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Image from LAPD video

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In body-worn camera footage, several officers can be seen entering the apartment and trying to talk to Smith. His speech seems, at times, disorganized and unintelligible.

A summary of the incident contained in a civilian Police Commission report indicates police spoke with — and tried to approach — Smith, who put two bicycles between himself and the officers. One police officer fired a Taser at Smith as he turned and grabbed a kitchen knife off of a countertop.

The shocks knocked Smith to his knees, and he dropped the blade.

According to police, the officers fired their guns at Smith when he picked up the knife again. Two officers fired seven shots, according to the report.

Moore said at a news conference after the shooting that it had given him “pause,” and he questioned why a SMART was not called to the scene to assist with Smith.

"I'm being very clear about my dissatisfaction with what I believe were points of information regarding his mental health — or his mental condition — that two resources were not called upon," the chief said.

The Police Commission found later that the officers who shot Smith did not comply with department policy on use of force.

The day after the Smith shooting, an L.A. police officer shot and killed Oscar Leon Sanchez, a 35-year-old immigrant from Mexico, whose family said he’d been struggling with his mental health after his mother’s death.

The department said officers shot Leon Sanchez at an abandoned home in South Central Los Angeles when he stepped toward them armed with “a makeshift stabbing weapon.” They shot him multiple times, and he died at a hospital.

An LAPD spokesperson said last year that officers at the scene did not call for a SMART, even though Leon Sanchez had been acting erratically during the incident, at one point accusing officers of trying to rob him.

The Police Commission determined later that officers complied with department policies.

But Jonathan Smith, a use-of-force expert who reviewed the body-worn camera footage last year at LAist’s request, said the case “screams out” for intervention from mental health specialists. He said he was relatively impressed with the officers’ decision to have less-lethal force ready, but they did not call for a SMART, even though Leon Sanchez was reportedly pacing and throwing things at cars.

“The information I have raises very, very serious concerns about whether any force was authorized or useful,” Smith said

Looking for alternatives 

There are ongoing efforts from the city and community groups to provide help for people in ways that remove policing altogether. But those efforts require funding.

"Over the past decades, our mental health system has been systematically shredded not just here in California but throughout the country,” Bass said in a statement to LAist. “The consequence of this divestment is individuals with mental illness deteriorating into crisis that can sometimes result in violence.”

Bass noted her office pushed for Proposition 1, a statewide ballot measure passed in March that shifts much of California’s millionaires tax toward housing for people with mental illness, and provides a mechanism to fund more beds in psychiatric facilities and supportive housing. She added that prioritizing “informed mental health responses” will be a focus in the search for the next police chief.

Last November, the mayor also noted that a pilot program launched in Hollywood and Venice in 2022 has since expanded to downtown L.A., South Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. The program, run by nonprofit Urban Alchemy, involves a team of mental health professionals and staff with lived experience who respond to calls deemed non-violent and that involve people who are unhoused.

The idea is to relieve police of what they call “quality of life” calls like trespassing or loitering. The teams respond to thousands of hotline calls each month that come to the nonprofit instead of police.

Other approaches are more grassroots.

Calling for an end to what they see as preventable police violence, Alejandro Villalpando and his partner Susana Parras organize meet-ups and trainings through the nonprofit Community Alternatives to 911. The group educates the public on how to get help during a mental health crisis without a police response.

Villalpando, who teaches social science at California State University Los Angeles, said he believes cities should divert funding from police budgets toward more public-health-focused efforts, including providing more mental health workers.

That, he said, would likely do more to curb violence than providing additional training for police officers.

“Because if you say you can train them to be less violent in how to deal with these situations, then maybe you should pay for them to become social workers and [therapists],” Villalpando said.

“And not come to a scenario that is already intense and add a gun to it.”

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.