Encounters with people in mental health crisis show bias: What the DOJ report says
Phoenix police violated rights against people with behavioral health disabilities, the Department of Justice found after its nearly three-year-long investigation.
The report states the Phoenix Police Department violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it discriminated while dispatching calls for assistance and responding to people in crisis.
The Justice Department's report recounted multiple cases of police officers' use of force when responding to behavioral health calls, including kneeing one man who attempted suicide, handcuffing a 15-year-old girl on the ground and shooting PepperBall rounds at a man, among other anecdotes.
During a training session for supervisors on patrol tactics and leadership, DOJ investigators heard a trainer describe a mental health disability as a "pre-attack indicator." The Justice Department wrote the city's policy "teaches and perpetuates false and harmful stereotypes that prime officers to escalate encounters with people with behavioral health disabilities."
The Justice Department looked into "patterns and practices" to determine if there were systemic discrimination. They found two:
The city’s 911 call takers default to dispatching police officers to behavioral health calls rather than sending a crisis response team.
Phoenix police officers fail to make “reasonable modifications” when interacting with people with behavioral health disabilities.
The city’s 911 call center receives about 2 million calls per year, and police respond to about one-third of them, the report states.
Phoenix has had “uneven results” in reducing its reliance on officers responding to behavioral health calls, the report found.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said Phoenix police have a “hair-trigger tendency” to use indiscriminate and overwhelming force, and that tendency is both pronounced and harmful.
The report found people with behavioral health disabilities have unequal access to Phoenix’s emergency response system, in violation of the ADA.
911 call takers failed to divert calls
Every month, about 5,000 dispatched calls are related to behavior health, the report states. Police predominantly respond.
The report largely faults 911 call takers' hesitancy and lack of training to divert calls to a mobile crisis team.
In 2020, Phoenix launched a pilot program with Solari Crisis & Human Services, a statewide mental health crisis hotline, to embed a part-time clinician in the call center. The company’s goal is to stabilize callers or send mobile crisis teams to respond.
Data from the city show since the pilot program began, 500 to 600 calls per month, or 8% of related calls, are diverted to Solari.
Dispatchers can also request Solari to request a crisis team to respond alongside officers, but the use has “remained stagnant for years,” the report found.
A spokesperson for Solari in a written statement to The Arizona Republic said the company has been honored to work with Phoenix to divert calls to its call center.
The company did not respond to questions about the DOJ’s findings that Phoenix 911 call takers hesitate to transfer calls to Solari.
The report states emergency dispatchers seldom used the mental health call code or used inaccurate call codes that failed to alert officers of behavioral health issues.
As an example, a mother called 911 after her 15-year-old daughter refused to get into her car and told call takers she had "behavioral issues" and that "it takes her a while to calm down."
The call taker routed patrol officers rather than a mobile crisis team. The report states officers escalated the situation and had the girl on the ground in handcuffs in less than three minutes. She was ultimately arrested on a charge of aggravated assault on an officer and booked into a juvenile correction center.
"That’s not going to help her mental health,” the mother told officers.
The Justice Department’s analysis found some call takers elevate calls with no danger to priority one, the most serious type of call, which the report found “eliminates the possibility of sending a non-police response.”
Phoenix failed to provide call takers with specific training to request mobile crisis teams and the skills needed to identify behavioral health-related calls, the report found.
Officers default to use of force
Phoenix police officers often respond to behavioral health calls with a “force first mentality,” the report states.
Officer’s failure to modify their approach when reasonable to do so harms people with behavioral health disability and violates the ADA, the report found.
“But we also saw scores of incidents where (Phoenix police) officers tried to resolve the situation as quickly as possible, often by using force, without accommodating people’s disabilities,” the report reads.
One example of such conduct provided in the report details a transport order of a man with schizophrenia for an involuntary mental health assessment. When officers arrived, they didn’t explain why they were there or make a serious attempt to talk to him, the report states.
Officers attempted to grab the man, and when he pulled back, “officers tackled him, put a knee on his neck for over a minute and placed him in leg restraints,” according to the report. The Justice Department's review of the officers' body camera video showed the man "appeared scared and confused" by their actions.
The man was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on an officer. Those charges were later dismissed by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Officer because there was “no reasonable likelihood of conviction.”
That incident was one of the numerous examples within the report of instances when calls were escalated and officers used force to detain and arrest people with behavioral health disabilities.
In another case, a woman called 911 because her boyfriend attempted suicide. Patrol officers were dispatched and waited 30 minutes for the man to arrive home. The report states when the man arrived, officers "immediately grabbed at his arms."
The man pulled away and backed into his apartment. The officer followed inside and tackled the man and forcefully restrained him. The man was taken to the hospital and later booked into jail for assaulting an officer and criminal damage for throwing his phone and breaking it, the report states.
Deadly force was used in some cases related to mental health calls. In one case, officers responded to a call of a man who threatened to jump out of a window. An officer asked the man if he wanted to fight, and he responded, "I'm trying to die."
Officers pointed their weapons at the man after he pulled out a small pocketknife. The man took two steps down. One officer fired his Taser, which was not effective. The man took a second step and the second officer shot the man three times, killing him. The report called the shooting unreasonable.
In a third incident, police fired two Taser probes at "a naked unhoused man holding only a pair of sweatpants" in front of a strip mall. The man said it was his home, and he worked for God. Four officers surrounded him. One ordered him to put his pants down, another to put them on. Within 10 seconds, an officer shot him with a Taser. "The man presented no threat warranting the use of a Taser," the DOJ wrote.
The officers' failure to reasonably modify their responses “stems from (Phoenix police’s) policy and training,” the report reads. The DOJ also states it found no evidence the agency holds officers accountable for not modifying its response to behavioral health calls or for not requesting mobile crisis teams.
Justice Department's recommendations
The Justice Department commended the city for pursuing alternative resources such as Solari and investment in civilian behavioral health units.
The programs “hold promise for changing the landscape of how people with behavioral health disabilities in Phoenix receive emergency services,” the report reads.
However, the consistent failure to identify behavioral health-related calls and modify responses accordingly results in discrimination under the ADA, the Justice Department concluded.
Among the DOJ’s recommendations include the adoption of new policies for repeat callers, improving and increasing its training for call takers and better preparing officers to modify their response to “properly accommodate behavioral health disabilities.”
“(Phoenix police) must train its officers in true de-escalation,” the report reads.
“As long as (Phoenix police) trains officers to misinterpret a person’s behaviors and use force quickly, people with behavioral health disabilities in Phoenix will continue to experience trauma, physical harm, and unnecessary arrest rather than behavioral health treatment.”
Reporter Maritza Dominguez covers Mesa, Gilbert and Queen Creek and can be reached at [email protected] or 480-271-0646. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @maritzacdom.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Treatment of people in mental health crisis: What the DOJ report says