Livingston County, like the rest of the nation, is grappling with the worsening state of mental health, and the impact is felt keenly by law enforcement officials. Calls for assistance during mental health crises are on the rise in both number and intensity, posing significant challenges.
Fowlerville Police Chief John Tyler recently addressed the village council, highlighting the growing issue. He reported that mental health-related calls have surged and have become increasingly volatile and violent. Chief Tyler expressed the difficulties they face, explaining, “Seems like it’s constantly our number one problem right now — is dealing with a lot of mental health. It’s difficult. We take them to the hospital, get evaluated and they let them out the back door. We’re getting the same people on the same day. Just trying to deal with the same thing over and over and over. I just don’t know what the answer is. It’s getting pretty bad. We’re dealing with some pretty violent, wild and crazy people out there right now, for sure. It’s not just us. It’s all over the nation.”
According to data from the University of Maryland Baltimore, nearly 50 million adults in the United States experienced a mental illness in 2019, with over 27 million of them not receiving treatment.
Director of Livingston County Community Mental Health, Connie Conklin, acknowledged the increase in emergency calls and noted that they are witnessing individuals in crisis who they may never have seen before.
Over the past five years, the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office has witnessed a surge in mental health-related calls for service. In 2019, there were 1,188 calls that included the word “mental,” resulting in 173 mental health incident reports. Although the numbers have remained relatively stable between 2019 and 2023, officials emphasize that the nature of these calls has become more challenging.
Sheriff Mike Murphy explained, “What I’m hearing from my men and women — and we’ll just go based on the numbers here and say that the numbers have been relatively flat — they think there’s more. But the reason they think that is because the calls themselves are much more heightened or escalated or violent. Frankly, I don’t have any numbers on that. But the calls that we’re responding to are much more volatile than they’ve ever been.”
