It’s yet another case that raises concerns about police response to mental health crises and puts the spotlight on the barriers to mental health care for L.A.’s immigrant community.

On a brisk February evening at a park in South Central, teenagers played soccer under the glow of floodlights.

Just up the street, Ysidro Leon motioned to an altar he prepared for his deceased brother, Oscar Leon Sanchez, under their covered patio.

Fresh flowers sat atop a gold tablecloth and candles burned all around. In the center, a picture of Leon Sanchez leaned up against a larger print of Our Lady of Guadalupe. “My brother liked her a lot, he had shirts, he had caps of the Virgin of Guadalupe ... Well, we, like every Mexican, you understand, we always venerate people and our saints,” Leon said in Spanish.

Leon Sanchez’s photo was marked with the day he was killed by LAPD officers: Jan. 3, 2023.

Borders and barriers

The first week of January was a deadly one for interactions with LAPD. Within just 48 hours, Takar Smith, Keenan Anderson, and Leon Sanchez were added to the long list of people who have died at the hands of police officers. Two of the men — Smith and Leon Sanchez — appeared to be experiencing a mental health crisis when they were shot and killed.

While both cases raise concerns about police response to mental health crises, the death of Leon Sanchez, a 35-year-old immigrant from Mexico, laid bare the barriers that L.A.’s immigrant community faces in accessing mental health care. Among the obstacles: fear of deportation, a dearth of culturally competent therapists who speak their language, and a cultural stigma around mental diseases and seeking help.

Leon Sanchez arrived in Los Angeles in 2007, according to his family. A psychologist LAist spoke with said she often sees immigrant patients who experienced complex trauma in their home countries. And the stress of adapting to life in the U.S. can exacerbate those issues, especially with the increased anti-immigrant rhetoric in recent years.

As Carolina Valle, policy director for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, put it: “We’ve seen huge attacks on the immigrant population ... And that has had a huge effect on their feelings about accessing care, their feelings about government and their feelings about services.”

Fatal encounter

In an uncommon move, LAPD Chief Michel Moore released officer body-worn camera video from the incidents involving Smith, Anderson and Leon Sanchez at a press conference the week following their deaths.

In the case of Leon Sanchez, the LAPD said 911 callers alleged he was throwing metal objects at cars and people while holding a knife.

Officers found Leon Sanchez at an apparently abandoned home. In the beginning of the released body camera video, two officers are heard talking to him for several minutes in English and Spanish, asking him to come down from a second-floor balcony.

The LAPD claimed Leon Sanchez advanced toward them with a sharp metal object at which point officers fired live and non-lethal ammunition. In the body camera video, one of the officers is using a riot shield that blocks the view of Leon Sanchez, which makes it impossible to see these alleged actions.

According to the L.A. County coroner’s office, Leon Sanchez’s cause of death was “multiple gunshot wounds.” The full autopsy report was not available as of March 22, due to “pending additional testing,” a coroner’s office spokesperson said in an email.

Leon said his brother was struggling with depression after the death of his mother in 2019. Christian Contreras, the family’s attorney, said Leon Sanchez was diagnosed with major depressive disorder after the death of his mother in 2019 and had taken medication to treat his condition.

Jonathan Smith is executive director of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. He is a use-of-force expert who reviewed the footage at LAist’s request.

While Smith said he’s relatively impressed with the officers coordination and decision to have less lethal force ready, he questions why officers didn’t call in one of the LAPD’s specially trained mental health crisis teams made up of an armed officer and a clinician from the Department of Mental Health, especially since a 911 call alleged Leon Sanchez was throwing things at cars and pacing back and forth. One caller said: “It appears that he’s on drugs because he’s assaulting people on the street.”

“The information I have raises very, very serious concerns about whether any force was authorized or useful,” Smith said.