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SFPD Crisis Intervention Team reports staffing gains, training expansion and CareLink rollout plan
Summary
Lieutenant Donald Anderson presented the CIT 2024 annual report: staffing doubled, a new CareLink tool for people with mental-health or developmental disabilities is planned, and calls for service dropped 27% year over year as SFFD and other partners took on some wellness checks.
Lieutenant Donald Anderson, officer in charge of SFPD's Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), presented the unit's 2024 annual report to the Police Commission and described staffing, training and partnership changes.
Anderson said CIT staffing grew from four to eight officers in 2024 and the unit moved from headquarters to Park Station to centralize response. The unit aims to expand to seven-day coverage when staffing allows. He reported that 72% of the department was CIT-certified in 2024 and that the department planned five CIT courses in the current year (one already held, four remaining).
Anderson described partnerships with the Department of Public Health's Comprehensive Crisis Unit and San Francisco Fire Department community paramedics and said the unit now conducts joint scheduled visits and co-responder responses when possible. He highlighted a new on-line "CareLink" feature planned for the SFPD CIT website that would let individuals or family members provide officers with information about triggers, calming strategies and other details to improve responses.
The report showed calls for service handled by CIT dropped about 27% compared with the prior year; Anderson attributed much of that decline to the SFFD taking more well-being-check calls. He said the unit had redesigned its website and that two clinicians now work in the CIT office two days a week; the unit hopes to increase clinician availability.
Community members and commissioners thanked the unit and urged attendance at the upcoming CIT awards ceremony; David Elliott Lewis of the CIT working group urged continued city investment in the co-responder model and clinician staffing.
