San Diego County, like many places nationwide, faces a mental health crisis.

For three days last year, nearly two dozen journalists with The San Diego Union-Tribune followed patients, police, clinicians, dispatchers and a host of others struggling for help to create a minute-by-minute account of our overwhelmed system.

Union-Tribune public safety editor Dana Littlefield, communities editor Tarcy Connors, managing editor Lora Cicalo, and publisher and editor Jeff Light discuss this in-depth multi-media special report.