Months ago, El Cajon police stopped automatically responding to mental health crisis calls when there isn’t a crime or apparent danger to others.

County officials and county-contracted civilian teams that also respond to crisis calls have been frustrated by the policy shift ever since.

Now, as our Lisa Halverstadt reports, the county is imploring the city to shift back to responding to “all high-risk mental health crises.”

In a letter sent to the city last week, a top county bureaucrat argued the El Cajon policy has “created significant gaps in our behavioral health response system” that are affecting people in crisis and county teams that rely on police.

Not interested: El Cajon’s police chief says he isn’t budging on the decision spurred by concerns about liability for police officer

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