Unarmed team members Sofia Zambrano and Monse Mota in East Hollywood, heading over to talk to someone on the street.
Photo by Barry Lank
Here is some background on the city’s unarmed response programs, which have expanded to the Eastside.
How many calls?
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About 15,000 police calls throughout Los Angeles get diverted to the CIRCLE team each year, according to Karren Lane, Deputy Mayor of Community Safety.
Some calls come through 911 or a police non-emergency number, where operators sort out whether a situation involves a non-violent, unarmed person who is perhaps homeless. But many calls are referred by officers in the field, Lane said.
Who gets hired?
It is not unusual for unarmed response members to have experienced homelessness.
“Most of the employees that we get have come from some recovery journey, or they themselves have been homeless or they’re formerly incarcerated,” said Tim Kornegay, the Los Angeles Operations Director for Urban Alchemy, the non-profit that covers the East area. “There’s no fear or trepidation there. There’s actually an identification because they themselves could have been homeless.”
Their job is not to address mental health issues, but rather to plug people into a system where mental health professionals are available, Kornegay said.
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How is the program structured?
The infrastructure behind the unarmed response program is still developing.
It started in 2022, under Mayor Eric Garcetti, with the Crisis and Incident Response through Community-led Engagement (CIRCLE) program. CIRCLE now has seven operating areas, covering two-thirds of the LAPD’s territory.
In 2024, the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response was launched through the City Administrative Officer. It covers the neighborhoods of six LAPD stations.
However, parts of L.A. have no unarmed response coverage, according to City Councilmember Nithya Raman. She is asking the City Council to create a single, citywide unarmed crisis response program.
Read about two Eastside members of CIRCLE’s unarmed response team.
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