In L.A., mentally ill people are cycled through what police, mental health officials and advocates agree is a revolving door of temporary psychiatric units and jail wards, never getting the long-term care they need.
police shot a woman named Evelyn Del Real as she allegedly stabbed her young son with a knife
Mental health officials and advocates warned against associating violence with people with mental illnesses, many of whom never become violent, and said the LAPD’s record of shooting people in crisis must be scrutinized and addressed — including by having more trained clinicians on scene to advise officers.
“We are in a position now where we need to relieve [the police] of, frankly, a burden that they don’t deserve. They’re not set up for it, they’re not equipped, and it’s a cultural mismatch,” Sherin said. “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t just have a police beat, we would have a mental health beat.” When police officers encounter someone who appears to be a danger to themselves or others or who is “gravely disabled,” they can fill out a form to have them assessed by medical staff and potentially held involuntarily for evaluation and care for up to 72 hours. It’s generally referred to as a 5150 — and it happens all the time.
If doctors believe a person brought in on a 5150 should remain in care after the initial 72-hour hold, they can petition for a person to be held longer or placed under a conservatorship that would place decisions about their care in the hands of a loved one or an assigned overseer, but that requires a hearing in which the patient is assigned an advocate to argue on their behalf.
Sherin said officials must push harder to redirect state funding to mental illness treatment, and to change state and federal policies that originated as well-meaning efforts to end the inhumane warehousing of patients with mental illnesses but now impede progress.
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