Los Angeles City Council votes to adopt unarmed crisis response as permanent program
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Summary
The City Council voted to adopt an expanded unarmed crisis response program as a permanent part of the city’s public-safety offerings, approving the motion as amended with a recorded 12-0 vote. Supporters cited pilot results and cost savings compared with armed police responses.
The Los Angeles City Council voted to adopt an expanded unarmed crisis-response program as a permanent city resource, approving the measure as amended with a 12-aye tally.
Councilmember Hernandez urged the council to move beyond a pilot and commit citywide, saying the program “responded to more than 18,733 calls, and 96% of those calls were resolved without police involvement.” Hernandez and colleagues argued that a scaled unarmed response could divert thousands of nonviolent crisis calls from police and free sworn officers for higher-acuity public-safety duties.
In remarks on the Council floor, proponents emphasized the program’s fiscal as well as public-health benefits. Hernandez cited a per-hour cost comparison used in the debate: roughly $85 per hour to deploy LAPD officers versus $35 per hour for an unarmed crisis-response team, and estimated full citywide coverage would cost about $40 million annually. Supporters contrasted that estimate with recent LAPD liability payouts, which were cited as about $56 million across seven settlements.
Council members said the expansion would include more divisions and create a crisis-response dispatch working group to streamline referrals to community-based responders, peer-support providers and housing or mental-health services. The adopted motion included an amendment that supporters described as a pathway to scale the model from current pilot coverage toward broader deployment and to ensure neighborhood, labor and service-provider representation in a transition plan.
The measure was taken up as item 48 on the agenda and recorded as adopted as amended; the clerk recorded the roll as 12 ayes on the final tally. Council leaders said the change represents a shift toward what they called a “care-first” approach to many nonviolent crises, while acknowledging continued responsibilities for LAPD and the fire department on high-acuity calls.
Next steps identified on the floor include preparing implementation details, establishing the dispatch working group, and returning status reports to the Council as the program expands.
