Officers trained to deal with mental illness in short supply

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Many police departments have specially trained officers and mental health professionals whose job is to help defuse the sometimes-volatile "5150" calls that involve people in the throes of mental illness.

But those officers are in short supply, and often they are unavailable in a crisis, as happened in Sacramento and the San Diego suburb of El Cajon, where police encountered men with mental problems and ended up shooting them to death.

Officers trained to deal with mental illness in short supply