Riverside County Sheriff's deputies shot a person on Villa Hermosa in Moreno Valley Friday afternoon after the individual, believed to be experiencing a mental health crisis, allegedly pointed a gun at them. The person was taken to a hospital in critical condition, and no deputies were injured in the shooting.
According to NBC Los Angeles, deputies responded just after 4 p.m. to a report about someone experiencing a mental health crisis at the home. Deputies first spoke with the person who had made the report outside the residence before the encounter with the individual in crisis escalated. The outlet reports that a clinical therapist from the county's Community Behavioral Assessment Team accompanied deputies to the scene, a detail that underscores how the call was initially treated as a behavioral health response rather than a straightforward police matter.
A Co-Responder Model Built to De-Escalate
That team pairs sworn deputies with licensed clinicians who ride together in patrol vehicles, letting a mental health professional lead behavioral evaluations while deputies focus on scene safety, according to Riverside University Health System. The model is part of a broader countywide network that also includes a 24/7 Mobile Crisis Response Team and mental health urgent care facilities in Perris and Riverside, meant to divert people in psychiatric crisis away from jail cells and emergency rooms.
Moreno Valley has invested directly in that infrastructure. In May 2022, the city council unanimously approved multi-year agreements with the sheriff's department that funded three Community Behavioral Health Assessment Team investigators, a vote the city described at the time as its largest single public safety investment in more than a decade, per the city of Moreno Valley. Because Moreno Valley has contracted out its policing to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department since 1985 rather than run its own municipal force, county deputies working out of the Moreno Valley Station are the ones who answer calls like Friday's.
What Remains Unknown
The exact sequence of de-escalation attempts before shots were fired has not been disclosed, and it remains unclear how many deputies discharged their weapons. Authorities have not released the identities of the person who was shot or the deputies involved, and the investigation is ongoing.
Per department policy, the deputies involved will be placed on paid administrative leave while internal and criminal reviews proceed. Because the person shot was reportedly armed rather than unarmed, the case falls to Riverside County's Force Investigations Detail, a task force jointly staffed by investigators from the Riverside County District Attorney's Office and the sheriff's department, rather than triggering independent state review. State oversight under Assembly Bill 1506 is reserved specifically for officer-involved shootings that result in the death of an unarmed civilian.
Not the First Crisis Call to Turn Violent
This is not the first Moreno Valley mental health call to end in gunfire. In February 2023, deputies responded to a Filaree Avenue home for a crisis involving a person diagnosed with schizophrenia who became aggressive, and that call also ended in an officer-involved shooting after de-escalation efforts failed, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Office. Countywide, co-responder programs pairing clinicians with officers trace back to the Riverside Police Department before expanding to other agencies, including Hemet police in late 2017.
Friday's incident also arrives amid heightened scrutiny of how Riverside County deputies use force in the field. Hoodline reported on a Moreno Valley deputy slamming a teen near Vista del Lago High School in May, and residential emergency calls have proven fatal for officers themselves in the county before. Capital murder trial proceedings began in April in Murrieta for a man accused of ambushing and killing Deputy Darnell Calhoun during a Lakeland Village dispatch call in January 2023, a case Hoodline has covered as it moves through court.
