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NEW 🚨 In January 2023, LAPD killed three people suffering mental health crises. In response, our Office assessed the LAPD’s Mental Evaluation Unit (MEU) & found that LAPD requires a patrol-first, armed response in mental health calls for service. Full report: bit.ly/lapdmeu

MEU is the LAPD unit whose main role is to respond to mental health calls. Within MEU, SMART units co-respond to these calls (along with LAPD patrol units). SMART units are 1 armed officer + 1 mental health clinician. (“SMART” = Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team)

📝MAIN FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS 🔎Finding: LAPD *requires* an armed, police-first response to mental health related calls, led by patrol units. 👉Recommendation: LAPD should revise its policy to allow SMART units to lead mental health related calls which don’t involve weapons.

🔎Finding: SMART’s focus is (1) relieving patrol officers from mental health calls; (2) involuntary mental health detentions 👉Recs: (1) LAPD should find ways to measure SMART's impact on mental health calls; (2) Clinicians’ role should be re-evaluated to be used in more ways.

🔎Finding: SMART’s performance is measured by how quickly they relieve patrol officers from on-scene duties, not by their impact on outcomes. 👉Recommendation: LAPD should develop ways to measure SMART's impact on mental health incidents and use of force incidents.

🔎Finding: LAPD fails to give SMART needed tools: ↪Use-of-force policies are vague ↪No clear policy guidance for dealing w/ mental crises ↪Handcuffing people in mental crisis is required ↪No specialized training ↪SMART officers armed ↪SMART not allowed to lead responses where weapons aren’t involved

👉Rec: LAPD should revise its policy to ↪Direct how to de-escalate ↪Give clear guidance on dealing w/mental crises ↪Eliminate handcuffing nonviolent people in mental crisis ↪Require more training for MEU & sworn officers ↪Allow SMART to lead certain mental health calls

Check out the full report to see more of our findings & recommendations: bit.ly/lapdmeu