Committee approves making UMCR permanent and advances consolidation with CIRCLE

The Los Angeles City ad hoc committee on unarmed crisis response voted to make the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response (UMCR) permanent and approved a motion to pursue consolidation with the mayor’s CIRCLE program, moves officials said will advance work toward a single, citywide civilian crisis-response system.

Councilmember Alisa Hernandez, cochair of the ad hoc committee, urged the committee to treat crisis response as care rather than punishment, saying, “When someone is in crisis, the city's first response should be care, not punishment.” Hernandez and other council members framed permanence and consolidation as a way to embed civilian response into the city's public-safety infrastructure with clearer governance, coordinated dispatch and accountability.

The City Administrative Officer’s office presented a year-two status update on UMCR. Vanessa Willis, a CAO staff member, reported that UMCR has “responded to 19,220 calls” since launch, an average response time of about 27 minutes, an average on-scene time near 19 minutes, and that roughly 3.8% of calls were redirected to LAPD. Willis said 40% of eligible calls resulted in assistance on scene…