LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia this week released an analysis that pointed to some major flaws in Los Angeles Police Department’s model for sending out teams made up of armed officers and county mental health clinicians to respond to 911 calls involving people experiencing mental health crises.
The report, On the Sideline, includes findings that the LAPD Mental Evaluation Unit’s SMART (Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team) program operates under policies that prioritize or lead to people getting handcuffed, arrested, institutionalized against their will, and even killed – even though the stated goal of this unit and team has long been to try to avoid such situations.
Mejia launched his audit of the SMART program more than two years ago, after three people experiencing mental health crises were killed by LAPD officers within the span of just 48 hours in January 2023. At the time, many other city leaders responded by calling for alternative, unarmed ways of responding to mental health crises.
To audit the SMART program, analysts in Mejia’s office studied LAPD policies, observed the police department’s mental health intervention training, went on ride-alongs, and reviewed incident reports. What they found was that mental health clinicians often played second fiddle to sworn LAPD patrol officers who called the shots when responding to incidents, not given the opportunity to use their expertise in the field.
For example, clinicians were unable to talk to and evaluate people until they were already detained and handcuffed by officers — even though in other cities there are more detailed policies and guidance that include discouraging, among other things, handcuffing people because it could escalate a situation, rather than calm things down. Handcuffing people also stigmatizes people for their mental illnesses and disabilities, the report says.
“While LAPD justifies this policy as a means to minimize escalation, research shows the act of using physical restraints like handcuffs is often an escalating act by officers,” the report said.
The report, meanwhile, points out that Black, Hispanic, and unhoused Angelenos bore the biggest brunt of what might happen when the LAPD’s armed mental health teams respond as they undergo a crisis. Among more than 80,000 incidents SMART responded to from 2020 through 2022, they make up the largest group of people affected, or were disproportionately represented in those incidents.
Mejia’s report comes as city officials tout some positive results from the first year of a newer “alternative crisis response” pilot, which city officials have dubbed the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response. Such teams include clinicians and social workers who are sent to non-violent incidents. The program has been rolled out in three areas around the city and is being expanded to three more.
And Mejia is pushing for his fellow city leaders – the mayor and members of the City Council – to invest more in this type of program, and to scrutinize what Angelenos are really getting out of the older, SMART model, stating that his analysis will help the community, stakeholders and LAPD officials “gain better insight into whether the city’s multi-million dollar yearly investment in MEU (Mental Evaluation Unit) is meeting its intended goals.”
Even though SMART is still the primary program the city has for responding to mental health emergencies, it actually does not respond to the majority of calls involving people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. It’s still mostly regular police officers, not accompanied by any mental health professionals, who are responding.
And Mejia’s report notes that LAPD officials for their part have also been calling for more investment into increasing the in the more established, nearly four-decades-old Mental Evaluation Unit, which includes 79 sworn officers and in a recent year cost $12.8 million in personnel costs. That amount does not include other costs like equipment and contracts.
Mejia’s report, meanwhile, has many recommendations for making the polices and training for the LAPD’s Mental Evaluation Unit and SMART more comprehensive and detailed.
Two members of the Los Angeles City Council, Nithya Raman and Eunisses Hernandez, offered statements this week responding to the audit of SMART, saying that they support investing more in an unarmed approach.
Mayor Karen Bass meanwhile issued a response saying that she planned to work with the controller and LAPD chief Jim McDonnell to look over the recommendations, “including additional training and appropriately updating policies to ensure that SMART units are fully maximized to assist Angelenos in mental health crises and to help prevent excessive use of force.”
They also found that the policies developed around responding to people undergoing mental health crises were vague, even though departments in other cities like Oklahoma City and San Diego, as well as police associations, readily offer more detailed policies. Training was also found to be less comprehensive than other places, with sworn LAPD, including those assigned to the Mental Evaluation Unit and its SMART teams, required to complete a one-time training on mental health intervention techniques. They also only need to complete 40 hours of training, without being required to do refreshers or training on more specialized topics.
They also determined that officers’ training spent a significant amount of time getting them well versed in apply for people to be involuntarily held in psychiatric detention, under what is known as a “5150 hold,” including in how to fight off appeals by the person being held. One trainer also remarked on the unusual disparity between officers being trained over a few dozen hours to apply for such holds, even though clinicians undergo thousands of hours of training before they do the same.
The controller’s office also found that clinicians who are part of SMART teams end up playing the role of transporting people to medical facilities and reducing patrol officers’ time spent doing that. The report echoed earlier concerns raised by interim LAPD chief Dominic Choi to the Board of Police Commissioners, a citizen LAPD oversight panel, that clinicians assigned to the teams are often “underutilized.”
They also found that the policies developed around responding to people undergoing mental health crises were vague, even though departments in other cities like Oklahoma City and San Diego, as well as police associations, readily offer more detailed policies, including on de-escalation.
And during the LAPD’s training sessions, auditors found that instructors said things that seem to undermine the stated goal of the program and that stigmatize mental illness, with one trainer opening his lecture by saying, “I went from working for crazy people to working with crazy people.”
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