Laredo police detail suicide-call trends and new mental-health outreach unit
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Summary
Sergeant Amalos reported year-to-date suicide and detention figures and described a newly launched police 'mental health evaluation outreach unit' that has made home follow-ups and plans to begin in-house transports, while committee members requested district-level call breakdowns for targeted outreach.
Sergeant Amalos of the City of Royal Police Department told the Laredo Suicide Prevention Committee on Nov. 19 that police have tracked 84 attended suicide calls and 171 suicide reports for 2025 through Nov. 19, along with 534 emergency detention reports and 677 emergency detention calls. "For 2025, January 1 all the way to 11/19/2025," Amalos said, reading the year-to-date totals.
The presentation moved from totals to incident-level detail. Amalos read several November cases — including an overdose on Nov. 1, a Nov. 5 case involving a 34-year-old male, and a Nov. 5 incident in which a 25-year-old woman threatened to shoot herself and was detained and transported to a local hospital — noting that his team records age, method and location for each response.
The sergeant announced the department has added officers to support expanded mental-health work and has launched a "mental health evaluation outreach unit." "We started this week. We visited about 20 individuals," Amalos said, describing follow-up home visits intended to prevent repeat crisis events. He said the unit will begin performing its own transports "hopefully, by next week." The report highlighted a case in which officers and partner agencies provided food and follow-up, and a community member "started crying" upon seeing outreach staff and said, "I didn't know you all cared." Committee members characterized that contact as a form of "caring contact" shown to reduce repeat crises.
Committee members asked for the department to break the call data down by ZIP code or city council district to make the patterns actionable for local representatives. Amalos said precinct- or district-level breakdowns are feasible and that the department's intel analyst can supply the detail. "I can get the districts by precincts," he said, and urged the group to specify whether they want suicide calls, emergency detentions or both.
The committee praised the outreach unit and encouraged continued partnerships with social-service groups. Members also requested the police include a legend on heat maps showing counts per ZIP code or district. The meeting record in the provided transcript does not show a formal vote on the report or a motion tied to implementation; the discussion closed with offers of support and resource referrals.
The committee plans to follow up on the requested district-level data and to monitor the outreach unit's transport pilot and outcomes at future meetings.
