‘Mixed Feelings’ About LA’s Plan to Use Unarmed Civilians to Respond as ‘Calls Can Very Quickly Escalate’: Former Detective

Los Angeles is launching a pilot program to send trained unarmed civilians to respond to nonviolent calls—instead of police officers. Peter Forcelli, a retired deputy assistant director at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and a retired NYPD homicide detective, who is also the author of “The Deadly Path,” tells NTD he has “mixed feelings” about the program, as some calls involve mental health issues, and “can very quickly escalate into public safety concerns and to criminal activity—and to acts of violence.” But he says he supports the idea of freeing police up to deal with crime.