As the number of reported mental health crises continues to rise in Santa Clarita and throughout the county, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Mental Evaluation Team (MET) has continued to work to get people the help they need despite working with only about half of the resources they need.
MET team assisted @scvsheriff at a call Monday night where a young male adult threatened to jump off freeway overpass. The male was safely rescued and transported to a medical facility for help.
Video: @AustinDave_ pic.twitter.com/YRq1XUx7lK
— LASD MET (Mental Evaluation Team) (@LasdMET) March 9, 2021
To say that 2020 was a turbulent year would be a vast understatement.
Millions of people were told to stay at home in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in millions of lost jobs and an immeasurable toll on the educational and emotional wellbeing of millions more young people across the nation. Couple this with one of the most polarizing elections in history, and even the most mundane of events becomes a powder keg for frustration and anxiety (looking at you toilet paper hoarders).
Unsurprisingly, the events of 2020 all contributed to an overall decline in the mental health of not just the Santa Clarita Valley, but Los Angeles County as a whole. The number of reported mental health crises and suicides both rose, and officials say they are likely to continue rising into 2021.
However, in the face of this continually-growing mental health crisis, MET units with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have continued to work to get residents the help they need, despite working with just over half of the resources they say that they need.
In order to get a better idea of how the events of 2020 impacted mental health and the MET’s response to it, KHTS sat down with MET Lt. John Gannon and Sgt. Brandon Barclay, who supervises MET operations in Santa Clarita, Palmdale and Lancaster.
“The public doesn’t see us out there every day, but I assure you we’re there,” Gannon said. “If you keep an eye out for us, we are the silent partners working behind patrol in the unmarked cars.”
What is the MET?
The foundation of the MET as it is today was created in the beginning of the 1990’s, when the Sheriff’s Department approved the first co-responders program in the country, pairing deputies with clinicians from the county Department of Mental Health to work full-time in the field responding to mental health crises.
However, this was a very small group, limited mostly to the East San Gabriel Valley, and occasionally the central area of Los Angeles. They simply were not large enough to cover areas such as Santa Clarita.
“People used to joke that MET was really a myth,” Gannon said. “Patrol deputies heard about this unit, but didn’t know it existed because we only had three, four and eventually five units. But when you’re covering a 4,000 square-mile county, that’s not a lot of manpower.”
Santa Clarita did not receive a dedicated MET unit until 2016, when three units were added to cover the Antelope and Santa Clarita Valleys. It was during this time that Gannon joined the MET.
“Then, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors decided that this program was something they wanted to really focus on expanding, because there was clearly a need,” Gannon said. “In both the community’s interest and in law enforcement, we realized we needed to do better in the way we were handling mental health crises.”
Today, the MET has 33 regional units deployed across Los Angeles County, along with a single unit contracted out to the city of West Hollywood. They are responsible for handling high-risk mental health crises for the entire county, with officials estimating that roughly 20% of the population suffer from some degree of diagnosable mental illness.
“The people who choose this as a career path and work for your MET teams, probably in almost all cases, have a personal connection to someone that is suffering from mental illness,” Gannon said. “They’re drawn to this type of work not by accident. I think that the level of dedication from our personnel, and how big hearts they have in the compassion they show, are second to none.”
Santa Clarita falls under the MET’s North Patrol Division, which also includes Lancaster and Palmdale. Barclay serves as a MET supervisor for this division, with only about 11 MET deputies assigned to the area.
“Keep in mind that there’s quite a bit of workload,” Barclay said. “They handle a vast number, 40% of the psychiatric emergent calls in the North Patrol Division, particularly in these three communities of Santa Clarita, Palmdale and Lancaster.”
Amidst cool temps today in SCV, MET deputy and clinician followed up on individuals experiencing homelessness & offered resources. One individual, homeless, was just released from mental health treatment. MET working with partnering agencies to establish housing for individual. pic.twitter.com/9c1tI6ohWW
— LASD MET (Mental Evaluation Team) (@LasdMET) March 4, 2021
A regional MET unit generally consists of a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and a county mental health clinician, who arrive at situations in “plainclothes” and unmarked cars, all in an effort to help de-escalate mental health crises.
“We really try to make them feel more like a patient, and less like a suspect,” Gannon said. “The embarrassment and stigma that goes with having ‘black and whites’ outside your house, we try to avoid as much as possible.”
Unlike local sheriff’s stations, MET units are not activated by direct contact from the public. Instead, local stations contact the MET after they have received a call for service they believe involves an individual experiencing a mental health crisis.
“For a routine call, we try to arrive on scene as close to the same time as possible with patrol, with the goal being that we want to affect the outcome of those calls and help with having a positive trajectory and a good outcome,” Gannon said.
To Gannon and the MET as a whole, a “good outcome” means successfully de-escalating the situation without anyone getting hurt and, in a “best-case scenario,” divert individuals away from the criminal justice system by instead taking them for mental health treatment. In 2020 alone, MET units were able to divert 98% of their cases to a mental health care facility, as opposed to jail.
“We go out there, and we successfully talk that bridge jumper off the ledge and let them know that there’s hope, or that veteran that’s in crisis that we talk down from something pretty significant, and can link them with the Veterans Administration, or just in general to try to make their worst day a little bit more manageable,” Barclay said. “That’s our job.”
Some of the tools MET units use in the field. Photo by Michael Brown/KHTS News.
Tools of the Trade
Before a deputy can begin going out into the field with a mental health clinician as part of the MET, they received an estimated 800 hours of formalized training.
“That’s a combination of training that we provide in-house, as well as formal classes, state certifications, post-training, et cetera,” Gannon said. “In my opinion, the fully-trained deputy sheriff, after a year at our unit with the clinician, is pretty well comparable to a mental health SWAT team.”
This training includes hours of crisis intervention training, an eight-hour crisis intervention training specifically for approaching veterans in crisis, and a 32-hour basic FBI negotiation course.
“I’ve learned so much more than my basic training,” Barclay said. “Just about active listening, giving people minimal encouragers, paraphrasing their sentences, trying to understand what they mean, actively engaging with them. All these things can come into play during a negotiation.”
Lt. Gannon explains the interior design of the MET vehicle. Photo by Michael Brown/KHTS News.
The unmarked MET vehicles differ greatly from regular “black and white” patrol cars, with a “patient-centric” design complete with smooth interiors and a lack of mechanics or protrusions to prevent an individual from hurting themselves.
“Everything we’ve done is to minimize injury and trauma to the patient,” Gannon said. “To look at it, you’re not seeing the appearance of jail, you don’t see the metal bars, you won’t see vertical guns, you won’t see a big bunch of handcuffs and everything. All of the police equipment in the front, for the most part, is minimized from their view.”
MET cars are also the only law enforcement vehicles in the county that can shine a green light in addition to the red and blue lights standard to a typical sheriff’s response. This is part of the wider “Greenlight a Vet” initiative, which is meant to show support for veterans coming home from military service.
“One of the things that we pride ourselves on in this team is our exceptional service to the veteran community,” Gannon said. “When we’re bringing them to the car, we can have the green light on as though they’re coming home and being welcomed back home. Two veterans that I’m aware of have literally come to tears when they realize how much we care for them.”
Every MET unit also carries de-escalation equipment in their vehicle that a standard patrol deputy may not immediately have access to, such as pepper ball guns and a 40 millimeter “exact impact weapon” that fires a non-lethal projectile.
“These are generally carried by supervisors on patrol, but not every patrol deputy has access to them. So MET units arriving on scene are equipped with the specialized equipment to ensure that we have options,” Barclay said. “Part of de-escalation means we may not be able to use no force, but we’ll do everything we can in our power to use less force.”
Equipment MET units use as part of the Project Lifesaver Initiative. Photo by Michael Brown/KHTS News.
Additionally, MET units have a specialized piece of equipment that can help locate missing individuals who take part in Project Lifesaver, an initiative backed by L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn that uses radio frequency technology to locate “habitual wanderers” whose loved ones have enrolled into the program.
“This is great technology that can go around and track people that wander, people that are elderly or people that are in the beginning stages of dementia,” Barclay said. “It’s a tracking band that can be checked by a caretaker to where, if somebody is a habitual wanderer or is a missing person, it gives law enforcement a resource or a tool to go locate this person.”
The MET has been tasked with leading this initiative in L.A. County, coordinating with other agencies such as the California Highway Patrol.
Residents can sign their loved ones up for Project Lifesaver here.
2020 By the Numbers
In 2020 alone, MET units were able to respond to 7,246, or 69%, of the 10,470 calls where a person was confirmed to have been in a crisis involving mental illness or a developmental disability as a “significant factor” in the incident. This is up 6% compared to the previous year, and 97% in the past five years alone.
“This affects every community, every demographic, every socioeconomic status. Nobody is immune to it,” Barclay said. “So I encourage you, if you hear something, you see something, say something.”
MET officials say that this response rate “exceeded expectations,” as they only have just over half of the minimum number of regional teams they say they need.
Of those, 3,113 responses, or just under 43% of the total for the county, came from the MET’s North Patrol Division alone. This number was up 11% compared to 2019, and 13% compared to 2018.
Santa Clarita accounted for 792 of the division’s responses. This is up 4% for Santa Clarita compared to 2019, and 10% compared to 2018.
On average, MET units relieved roughly three patrol deputies and one sergeant at each incident after arriving on scene, with MET units relieving patrol deputies at just over 6,000 calls in 2020.
“At the earliest opportunity, once MET gets on scene, we try to relieve the patrol units so that they can return to normal duty,” Gannon said. “That’s also for harm reduction, and a trauma-informed approach to our care.”
After MET personnel assume care for the affected individual, they handle the transportation, hold, and hospital admittance of the patient, allowing patrol deputies to return to their duties and saving them from being out of the field for up to 2.5 hours on average.
During 2020, the MET was credited with resolving 51 serious incidents, such as barricaded suspects, without having to summon the Special Enforcement Bureau.
MET units also helped de-escalate individuals involved in 41 “high-risk incidents” before Crisis Negotiations Team (CNT) personnel were activated, with the MET now handling an estimated two-thirds of all crises formerly handled by the CNT prior to 2018.
Throughout all of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s areas of jurisdiction, 226 suicides were reported in 2020. This roughly averages out to one suicide for every day-and-a-half. Keep in mind that this does not include areas in the Los Angeles Police Department’s jurisdiction, which mostly covers the City of Los Angeles.
To put that in further perspective, at least one person committed suicide in LASD jurisdiction for slightly under half of the days of the year.
We are on our way! MET responded to assist @LANLASD with female having psychotic break, naked, throwing things and a suicidal female who has plan; @TEMLASD with female punching walls, wanting to hurt self; @EastLALASD with female yelling, confrontational with random people. pic.twitter.com/w8s5VYObOQ
— LASD MET (Mental Evaluation Team) (@LasdMET) March 13, 2021
Roughly 76% of all identifiable suicide victims in 2020 did not have any previous calls for service indicating mental health issues or suicide risk, a statistic that has caused concern for many MET officials.
“We definitely expect, and are starting to see, the onset of additional acute crises where the person has not recently received any mental health treatment prior to engaging with us in the field,” Gannon said. “That’s a high-risk concern to us, because if MET is not available, the patrol deputies are engaging them without the high level of expertise that we can offer.”
At least 17 suicides were confirmed to have occurred within the Santa Clarita Valley in 2020 alone, roughly translating to one reported suicide in Santa Clarita every three weeks.
Unfortunately, all of these numbers are likely to be higher in actuality, as many people who are either suffering from mental health disorders or experiencing drastic declines in their mental health may not report it or ask for help until it is too late.
“If you know someone is seriously in need of mental health treatment, or are voicing depression or suicidal thoughts, they’re not kidding,” Gannon said. “So please take it seriously. Please seek assistance, contact the Department of Mental Health helpline.”
A list of mental health resources can be found at the bottom of this article.
The Impact of COVID-19
Much of the increase in the number mental health crises and reported suicides within Los Angeles County can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. MET officials took their data for the 100 days before the original lockdowns in March of 2020, and compared it to the hundred days after that.
“Just that first hundred days, we saw an increase of 10% in the frequency of crises,” Gannon said. “So there’s definitely a worsening of the caseload.”
Additionally, the severity of these crises became significantly worse, with 55% of the MET’s caseload involving a patient that met one or more of their criteria for being a “high-risk person in crisis,” as opposed to the 15%-16% they typically experienced before that.
“We’ve seen an increase, since the COVID-19 pandemic, of more volatile calls,” Barclay said. “People feel lonely, people feel isolated. So we’ve seen an uptick in suicides, an increase in substance abuse.”
Gannon also noticed the number of suicides reported for the county’s younger population, which he defined as “middle school through early college years,” had increased.
“Because schools are closed, they’re trying to self-medicate or they’re home depressed for an extended period of time,” he said. “By the time somebody finally calls for help and they’re in crisis, it generally means they’re much worse on the spectrum than they would have presented had school been in and they had direct access to the resources that are normally available to them.”
MET assisted Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s with teen who made suicidal statements and then went missing. Thankfully, she was safely found! MET deputy and clinician transported the teen to medical facility for evaluation and treatment. pic.twitter.com/0MZb8GQftf
— LASD MET (Mental Evaluation Team) (@LasdMET) March 11, 2021
In addition to an increase in both number and severity of cases, the MET had a third obstacle presented by COVID: a decrease in an already-small staff when units had to be quarantined when they felt ill.
“I’d say that was our greatest challenge,” Gannon said. “We actually lost some of our own capacity to handle calls at a time when calls for crisis were increasing. So that forced us to triage cases, and only respond to what we thought were the worst-case scenarios.”
Officials estimate that MET units may have missed up to 50% of their case volume based on their inability to answer all the calls that were coming in as a result of the staffing shortage.
“It’s truly been unprecedented times, but let’s be honest, mental health crisis doesn’t go down,” Barclay said. “It’s only increased.”
On top of all of this, MET units would sometimes end up being with a patient for longer periods of time at hospitals as they waited for treatment in the face of COVID-19 surges that overburdened hospital staff at times, which in turn would result in delayed response times from the MET.
“My units may be down for two and sometimes three hours with a patient, while meanwhile I have very little or no backfill capability to cover that same area that they normally would patrol,” Gannon said. “So that’s an example of why we need to have some additional coverage for the MET units.”
Future of the MET
Unfortunately, the trends of 2020 look to be continuing into the new year. MET units responded to 639 mental health crises throughout L.A. County in February of 2021 alone, the largest portion of which came from the North Patrol Division.
If this rate stays consistent for all of 2021, MET could see another 6% increase in the number of high-risk mental health crises they respond to compared to the previous year.
“Some of the people that we’re seeing are really in a bad place, and some don’t adhere to commands and they won’t follow directions,” Gannon said. “So that can lead to negative outcomes.”
Gannon also pointed out that, despite the training, technology, and support from county officials, the MET is still not staffed to the extent experts say it should be.
“We are way better trained than most teams to ensure that when we arrive, we will be the best possible resource you could hope for in that situation,” he said. “The only concern I have now is we haven’t seen it through.”
In 2018, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Commission recommended that the MET should be “conservatively staffed with 60 regional teams at a minimum,” which is almost double the team’s current size.
“Until the staff are trained, and all the equipment and the people are put in place to expand the team, we will continue to see, unfortunately, some outcomes when they have experiences with law enforcement that may not end as well as they could have had MET been available at that time,” Gannon said.
In between calls, MET in Santa Clarita continues to look for homeless individual who they have had contact with before. The individual previously turned down resources, but in light of rainy weather, the deputy and clinician are looking to see if help will be accepted this time. pic.twitter.com/z3kgAVw4A1
— LASD MET (Mental Evaluation Team) (@LasdMET) March 15, 2021
This year, MET officials have proposed adding 12 additional teams, bringing their total to 45 regional units. The $5.5 million proposal would help Gannon both achieve 24-hour crisis response coverage and fill “critical service gaps.”
“If we were able to get these additional units, that will allow us to provide 24-hour coverage, seven days a week, in addition to adding some additional coverage so that when a unit is out of service or in the hospitals, we can have another layer of protection and have another unit that can backfill that area,” Gannon said.
MET officials have also proposed the creation of a Crisis Intervention Bureau (CIB) within the Sheriff’s Department, which would encompass not just all MET operations, but the Risk Assessment & Management Program, Veterans Mental Evaluation Teams, Intaking Booking Diversion programs, the Crisis Negotiations Team, and the Project Lifesaver initiative.
“CIB would certainly attract highly-motivated personnel seeking a career path specializing in trauma -informed de-escalation care for the seriously mental ill with emphasis on harm reduction strategies and diversion away from the criminal justice system whenever possible,” reads a summary of the proposal.
In the meantime, MET units will continue to operate with the resources they have, providing mental health crisis intervention to the millions of residents that live in 4,000 square miles, 42 cities, and 120 unincorporated communities that the MET covers.
“If you’re feeling depressed, if you’re feeling suicidal, people care. We care,” Barclay said. “Let us intervene and try to do what we can to make this worst day a little bit more manageable.”
Anyone seeking information about mental health resources available in the Santa Clarita Valley can click here for a list of resources. There are 24-hour phone numbers available. In the event of an emergency, 9-1-1 should always be the first call. Those looking to speak with someone can call:
- 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
- 1-800-854-7771 for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health
- 1-800-784-2433 for the Treatment Advocacy Center
- 661-259-9439 for the SCV Child & Family Center
- 661 212-0720 for Sharon Brubaker – Grief Recovery Specialist
- 661-288-4800 for the Santa Clarita Valley Mental Health Center
- 661-257-9688 for the Santa Clarita Valley Youth Project
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