Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has ordered an outside review of how the LAPD responds to people who appear to be in mental-health or behavioral crisis. The order follows two fatal shootings about a week apart and raises questions the review has yet to answer: how decisions are made across a crisis response, what alternatives are available, and what can be learned from calls resolved without force.
The Los Angeles Times reported that officers fatally shot 33-year-old Alejandro Garcia on July 29 beneath the 10 Freeway overpass on Normandie Avenue. Garcia was holding an aluminum bat with both hands. Body-camera footage later appeared to conflict with an early LAPD account that he had swung the bat at officers. About a week later, officers shot and killed 44-year-old Canas Zimran in Boyle Heights after he approached them holding an object later identified as a tree trimmer. The department has not identified the officer or officers who shot Garcia.
What the review is meant to establish
Bass has described the department’s training for these encounters as inadequate and said different or better training might have prevented Garcia’s death. She has also stressed that officers must respond when an incident poses an immediate danger. The proposed review is not limited to officers’ conduct: it is intended to examine dispatchers, supervisors and others involved in responding, as well as five years of calls involving people with known mental or behavioral health conditions that ended without force, according to the Times.
That focus could help identify practices used in non-force outcomes, but the directive does not yet specify who will lead the review, when it will report or what reforms may follow. Bass has separately ordered an assessment of training and procedures for people booked into jails and detention facilities, including restraint and transfer for medical care.
Crisis services beyond police response
The county describes a crisis-service option outside the scope of a police-led response: people can call the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health at 800-854-7771 for referrals or field deployments.
A separate funding standard provides another piece of context, not a measure of LAPD performance: a June 2024 report from the Los Angeles Office of the City Administrative Officer says mobile crisis teams must have at least two providers to qualify for Medi-Cal reimbursement under the mobile crisis benefit, while eligibility for the 988 fund requires teams to be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It does not establish how those requirements relate to either shooting.
What the available figures can—and cannot—show
Historical figures offer limited context rather than an explanation of the current cases. LAPD reported a 27% decrease in officer-involved shootings involving people officers perceived to have a mental illness in 2022. That single-year comparison does not establish a continuing trend or indicate what happened in the two encounters now under scrutiny.
The California Department of Justice cautions that its use-of-force dataset does not capture the full spectrum of incidents and that comparisons or generalizations should be made carefully. The mayor’s review may provide a more focused examination of crisis calls and response decisions, but its methods, findings and recommendations have not yet been announced.
