A mental health urgent care center where an employee was shot by a would-be patient is re-evaluating its screening procedures, county officials said Tuesday.
The clinic, operated by Exodus Recovery, Inc. on the Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center campus, is not a county facility. However, Department of Mental Health staffers are working with the clinic to make sure the Willowbrook campus is safe.
“We, of course, care very deeply about anything that happens at the MLK campus,” Department of Health Services Director Dr. Mitchell Katz told the Board of Supervisors. “We want to make sure that it’s a safe place for everybody, for employees, for patients.”
Vincent Heard, 20, became agitated while being evaluated for intake at Exodus around noon Monday, according to police. The evaluator pushed a panic button to call for help.
As Heard was being taken away to be placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold, a scuffle broke out and he shot the mental health worker, DMH Director Marvin Southard told the supervisors.
The victim, who is male, is in stable condition today at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, according to Exodus.
Police said Heard was taken to a hospital for treatment and booked on assault with a deadly weapon and several other charges. His bail was set at $120,000.
The Exodus facility does not have large-scale body scanners and the guards do not carry guns. But Southard said the clinic does have hand-held metal detectors that can be used to scan for weapons.
Heard was patted down, but the weapon was not detected, according to police.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas stressed that this kind of violence was unprecedented at any facilities run by Exodus.
“Nine years of work in this area of diversion, several facilities, some 20,000 patient visits per year, not a single incident of this sort,” Ridley- Thomas said.
— City News Service