What Calls Does This Handle?

Mobile crisis teams serve anyone experiencing a mental health crisis, substance use emergency, or related behavioral health challenge who needs immediate help but doesn’t pose a violent threat.¹

The Standard Call Types

Programs typically respond to mental health crises where no crime is in progress and no weapon is present.² That includes suicidal ideation, panic attacks, psychotic episodes, substance use and intoxication, welfare checks, confusion related to dementia, family behavioral crises, homelessness-related calls, and low-level disturbances like loitering or trespassing.

Oklahoma City’s program includes “a certified peer support recovery specialist” alongside a navigator and paramedic, according to KOSU, and “tackles overdose response, providing treatment, support and follow-ups to people struggling with substance use.”³ Teams carry Narcan, connect people to detox programs, and help them access medication-assisted treatment.⁴ Ryan Mattson, who leads the mobile crisis team in Bozeman, Montana, described the range to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle: “I’ve been out on calls where individuals have barricaded themselves in residences or in their vehicles with a firearm. So, helping to assist not only law enforcement, the negotiators, but consulting on the behavioral health side of that.”⁵

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the county’s teams handle cases “no one contemplated at launch,” including “mothers experiencing postpartum depression,” “parents whose children have physically assaulted them,” and “combative loved ones with dementia.”⁶ In Harris County, Commissioner Rodney Ellis described a response in which a young woman who had taken pills from her mother’s medicine cabinet and locked herself in her bedroom was reached by HART’s crisis intervention specialists, who de-escalated the situation and connected her to care.⁷

Who’s Calling

Documented call types span every age group and setting.

Ohio’s statewide mobile crisis program for youth serves anyone under 20, responding to schools, homes, and community settings, according to Spectrum News.⁸ Teams have helped teenagers who’ve swallowed pills, young children with autism experiencing meltdowns, and adolescents with severe anxiety unable to attend school.⁹ The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that teams also respond to elderly individuals with dementia and “combative loved ones with dementia.”⁶

Teams also respond to families in crisis. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported cases involving “parents whose children have physically assaulted them” as well as “mothers experiencing postpartum depression.”¹⁰

College campuses have become major users. Inside Higher Ed reported that UC-Davis’s crisis team “receives between five to six calls per day.”¹¹ CSU Long Beach’s program director explained the reasoning: “When our police department responds to crisis situations on campus, they’re in uniform and they’re carrying a firearm. Even before a word is said, it just has a different optic.”¹² Over 700 schools in San Diego County have been trained on how to access mobile crisis teams, according to the Times of San Diego.¹³

Guilford County, North Carolina created a specialized team for frequent 911 callers. The Rhino Times reported the team “reduced this group’s non-emergency calls to 911 over a 30-day period from 344 to four.”¹⁴

The Bright Line

Any situation involving a weapon, credible threats of violence, active physical altercation, or a crime in progress goes to police.¹⁵ The 911 call-taker screens for weapons, history of violence, active threats, and crime in progress before routing. If conditions change after the crisis team arrives, the team withdraws and calls for police backup.

CBS News San Diego reported that in San Diego County, “over 98% of calls have been diverted from armed law enforcement.”¹⁶ American Police Beat Magazine reported that Denver police “have never been called for backup during STAR interventions.”¹⁷ Minneapolis reported “not a single unarmed responder has been seriously injured.”¹⁸

The Gray Zone

Between the clear clinical calls and the clear police calls are situations where the dispatch decision is less straightforward: domestic situations where there’s no weapon but the history is volatile, or calls where the dispatcher can’t confirm safety conditions. Some programs handle this by requiring police to secure the scene before the crisis team enters. Others give the crisis team authority to assess from a distance and decide whether to engage. Durham’s HEART co-response unit pairs a CIT-trained officer with a clinician specifically for calls involving weapons or threats — keeping the clinical expertise available without sending unarmed responders into potentially dangerous situations.¹⁵

Denver’s STAR program initially handled a narrow set of call types and expanded over time, according to the NYU Policing Project.¹⁹ San Diego County now sends its teams to college campuses, tribal communities, grade schools, and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.²⁰

The Expansion Pattern

Denver’s STAR initially handled a limited set of call types in a small geographic zone and expanded to citywide coverage, according to the NYU Policing Project.¹⁹ Oklahoma City’s Alternative Response Team started with mental health calls and expanded to substance use calls and welfare checks, contributing to what The Oklahoman reported as a “57% Decline In Police Dispatched To Mental Health Calls.”²¹ San Diego County’s 44 teams now serve schools, universities, military bases, and tribal communities across the county, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.²⁰ Even with expansion, no program has achieved full coverage of eligible calls — Denver handles roughly 44% and Austin reported needing three times its current staffing to match demand.²⁴

A dispatch data analysis of 15 U.S. police departments, reported in American Police Beat Magazine, found that “up to 20%” of police dispatch time was spent on behavioral health calls.²² The NYU Policing Project reported that Denver’s STAR program covers only 44% of eligible calls.²³ KVUE reported that Austin “needs three times the number of members it currently has to fully match the volume.”²⁴

Up to 20%

of police dispatch time spent on behavioral health calls across 15 departments studied (American Police Beat Magazine)²²

The Bottom Line

Documented call types include suicidal ideation, psychotic episodes, substance use, welfare checks, family crises, and dementia-related calls. Weapons and active violence are screened at dispatch and routed to police. San Diego County reports 98% of calls handled without law enforcement. Denver handles 44% of eligible calls; Austin reports needing three times its current staffing.