Since 2021, the Maryland Office of the Attorney General has reviewed 86 cases in which someone was killed by police or died during a police response — and 20 of those cases involved mental health crises, according to a report released Thursday.

Of those 20 cases, 18 were police shootings, one was an in-custody death and the other was a fatal vehicle collision, the report found. Those 18 police shootings made up 40% of all fatal police shootings in the state during the period of a little more than four years. In all but one, the person shot by police was armed.

Attorney General Anthony Brown said the incidents represent a fraction of the mental health-related calls police respond to. The volume of calls “highlights the continued need for investment in and provision of mental health services,” he said.

For the fatal encounters, police are almost always called to the scene, Brown added.

“Police are not seeking out these encounters,” he said. “Given that lives are at stake in these situations, this information suggests that continued behavioral health training is critical for law enforcement officers to fulfill their public safety function.”

Brown’s comments were part of an annual report his office puts together on all deaths resulting from police encounters, which are automatically reviewed by the attorney general’s Independent Investigations Division.

The General Assembly created the division in 2021 to investigate deaths involving local police officers and avoid potential conflicts of interest. It was further empowered in 2023 to prosecute its own cases.

Since then, it has brought two such prosecutions, both in Anne Arundel County. Weeks after the first prosecution faltered, the leaders of the division resigned.

There were 21 fatal incidents in 2025, including 13 shootings, six vehicle collisions and two in-custody deaths. Nearly half were in the Baltimore area (six in the city and four in the county).

Brown continued to call attention to fatal vehicle pursuits as a particularly problematic recurrence.

“Minor and nonviolent offenses continue to be the justification for far too many vehicle pursuits that result in a death, often the death of an innocent person struck by the fleeing vehicle,” Brown said.

He said he is renewing his “call for collaborative policy development to ensure pursuit risks are weighed against public safety.”

“While evading law enforcement is a serious offense, no innocent bystander’s life should be placed at risk to apprehend a driver for a minor violation,” he said.

In 19 of the 31 vehicle pursuits investigated by the division since 2021, the person who died was not the driver of the fleeing vehicle, the report found.

In 11 of those 19 cases, the person who died was a passenger in the fleeing vehicle or in an uninvolved vehicle that was struck, according to the report. In the remaining eight cases, six people killed were the drivers of uninvolved vehicles and two were uninvolved pedestrians.