State laws permit involuntary commitment when all of the following conditions have been met EXCEPT

Sometimes, the safest—or only—thing you can do in a mental health emergency is call the police. This is especially true if the person you’re calling about has a weapon and is threatening themselves or someone else with it.

However, there is also a risk involved when you do. There have been many high-profile cases in which police who were called to the scene of a mental health e...

Sometimes, the safest—or only—thing you can do in a mental health emergency is call the police. This is especially true if the person you’re calling about has a weapon and is threatening themselves or someone else with it.

However, there is also a risk involved when you do. There have been many high-profile cases in which police who were called to the scene of a mental health emergency killed the person they were called to help.

These include cases where there was another option besides using deadly force. This reflects an unfortunate discrepancy between how officers are trained to respond to threats and how they would be trained to respond to a mental health emergency had they received such training.

Fortunately, many states and cities are seeking to address this issue by training officers to respond differently to mental health emergencies. One popular option is establishing Crisis Intervention Teams in which police partner up with mental health professionals for mental health emergency calls.

In any case, consider your circumstances carefully before calling 911 to request police intervention in a mental health emergency.

In some cases, it’s your only safe option. In other cases, alternative methods of getting the person to an emergency room for an evaluation (or even to have mental health professionals come to where the person is) may be appropriate and available.

Depending on your circumstances, you may be able to call a state or local mental health crisis line for help instead of 911. You can go to our state mental health services page and select your state to find the crisis line you should use.