A few months after El Cajon police quietly halted automatic responses to some mental health calls, the county is urging the city to change course.

A top county bureaucrat detailed the county government’s concerns with the El Cajon policy shift including challenges for county-contracted clinicians who can’t always respond without police backup – in a letter to the city manager last week. She asked the city to consider changes.

El Cajon’s police chief told Voice of San Diego he’s not going to.

“We don’t have any intentions on shifting back to what we were doing before,” Police Chief Jeremiah Larson said. “I think it’s working how it should be.”

The police department no longer automatically sends out officers to calls where someone threatens to harm themselves but there’s no apparent crim

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