A 58-year-old South El Monte man diagnosed with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and psychosis has been missing since 1 a.m. last Monday, and detectives say every hour matters in finding him. Clifford J. Lamb was last seen near his home on the 1900 block of Bryce Road, and investigators have classified him as an at-risk missing person.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is asking the public for help locating him, according to LA County Sheriffs. Lamb is described as a white male standing 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds, with brown hair, brown eyes and a gray beard. He was last seen wearing navy-blue sweatpants and bright blue shoes, and the photo circulated by the department dates back to 2010.
South El Monte contracts its police services to the Sheriff's Department, with deputies from LASD's Temple Station handling local patrol and field response, according to the City of South El Monte. That means the search for Lamb falls under the jurisdiction of the same agency now leading the investigation into his disappearance.
Why the Case Moved to Homicide Bureau Detectives
Because Lamb's case involves severe mental health conditions, LASD policy routes it directly to station detectives and the department's Homicide Bureau Missing Persons Detail, which requires broadcast alerts and NCIC database entries within one hour, per Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department procedure. Anyone with information is asked to contact the LASD Homicide Bureau at 1 Cupania Circle in Monterey Park, attention Detective J. Bailey, at (323) 890-5500.
State law also shapes how quickly cases like this move. Under California Penal Code Section 14211, police and sheriff's departments cannot impose any waiting period before accepting a missing person report, requiring agencies to take reports immediately and transmit information to state databases, according to the California Department of Justice. That legal framework helps explain why detectives were able to begin searching and alerting other jurisdictions without delay once Lamb's family reported him missing.
A Landscape That Complicates the Search
South El Monte is a San Gabriel Valley city of roughly 20,400 residents bordered by the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel Rivers and sitting adjacent to the sprawling Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That mix of urban streets, river corridors and hundreds of acres of parkland and water basins creates a genuinely difficult environment for search teams looking for someone who left home on foot.
Severe mental illness affects a significant share of the population; roughly 1 in 20 adults nationwide, or more than 14 million people, live with a serious condition such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder or severe bipolar disorder, per the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Such conditions can trigger episodes of psychosis or disorientation that increase the risk someone will wander from home, a dynamic that underlies why Lamb's case was classified as at risk rather than a routine missing-adult report.
How to Report a Tip
Los Angeles County also runs L.A. Found, a countywide program launched in 2018 by the Board of Supervisors alongside LASD and the Aging & Disabilities Department that uses Project Lifesaver radio-frequency wristbands and dedicated ground and air search teams to locate people who wander due to severe mental illness, dementia or cognitive disorders. It remains unclear whether that program or a Silver Alert, which state law allows the California Highway Patrol to issue for cognitively or mentally impaired adults in peril, has been activated in Lamb's case.
Anyone wishing to share information anonymously can call Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS (8477), use the P3 Tips mobile app available on Google Play and the Apple App Store, or submit a tip through lacrimestoppers.org. Residents can also sign up for Nixle email and text alerts from LASD by texting their zip code to 888777, and the Sheriff's Information Bureau can be reached at 213-229-1700 for general inquiries. The advisory was issued under Sheriff Robert G. Luna and forwarded through Nixle on Thursday.
