Committee hears police suicide-response data, 988 funding gap and public-health tools; trainings and rallies planned

Law enforcement and public-health staff told the Suicide Prevention Committee in March that local responders handled dozens of suicide-related incidents in recent months while state and federal funding gaps limit crisis-line capacity and local services.

The committee heard the most immediate operational update first: local mental-health unit supervisors reported 34 attempted-suicide calls and 48 attempted-suicide reports over the past three months, seven deaths so far in 2025, 128 emergency-detention reports and 154 emergency-detention calls. The speaker said there were eight suicide-related calls and two deaths in March alone.

The numbers matter because they affect how quickly police and hospitals can respond. Sergeant Terrigo Torres, who presented the department’s data, said officers must follow statutory criteria when deciding whether to detain someone for an emergency mental-health evaluation. "Remember, a lot of these times when we ED somebody, it's because they have to show an immediate threat," Torres said. He also described the department’s staffing: "I do have 3, mental health, unit officers that assist me, and and 1 of them is Jacqueline Navaros, Emerson Barbosa, and Gilberto Ramirez." The committee discussed recurring operational friction: hospital staff sometimes delay signing admission paperwork needed for involuntary emergency holds, which officers said can lengthen the incident and paperwork burden.

Why this matters: committee members said those delays and high call volumes complicate response during peak hours and overnight. Speakers emphasized that emergency detention is a removal of liberty requiring careful legal justification and…