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.”