NYPD Systematically Fails NYers In Mental Health Crisis: Suit

NEW YORK, NY — Justin Baerga's mother hoped when she called 911 that medics would come help her son through a mental health crisis, but instead police busted into his house, strapped him to a gurney, and took him to a hospital against his will, a new lawsuit contends.

A class action suit filed Wednesday in Manhattan Federal Court Monday accuses the city of a "systematic failure" to provide "safe, appropriate, and immediate" care to New Yorkers in crisis and demands an end to city policy that sends police to their homes, court records show.

"Despite the myriad civil rights violations suffered by those with mental disabilities at the hands of the police, and despite the desperate need for reform, New York City has discriminatorily and unconstitutionally continued to use armed police officers as first responders to mental health crises," reads the suit.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, the city and several NYPD officers are named in the lawsuit brought by mental health organizations Community Access Inc., National Alliance On Mental Illness of New York City, and Correct Crisis Intervention Today, court records show.

The lawsuit argues that the city should instead deploy mental health professionals as part of a comprehensive plan to protect New Yorkers in mental health crisis.

Other recommendations include:

1. Implementation of a new non-police mental health crisis response program operating independently of the NYPD.
2. Mental health crisis first response teams consisting of one independent emergency medical technician and one trained crisis counselor who identifies as a person with lived mental health experience.
3. Mental health crisis first responder teams to be deployed by a nongovernmental agency or agencies which shall receive funding from the City.
4. Response times of mental health crisis first responder teams to be no case slower than the City’s response times for other crises.
5. Mental health crisis first responder teams to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks per year.
6. A new phone number for mental health crisis calls, as an alternative to 911—such as 988.
7. An oversight board to monitor the new mental health crisis response program.

The New York Police Department declined to comment on pending litigation, but a spokesperson did say the department supports a pilot program going on in Upper Manhattan where mental health professionals are responding to these crises instead of officers.

“Mental health crises are not matters for law enforcement,” said Marinda van Dalen, an attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, one of the civil rights groups that filed the suit. "They are healthcare issues that must be appropriately handled by health professionals, rather than police, whose involvement routinely causes more trauma."

The suit includes four plaintiffs who were subjected to "an unconstitutional seizure and detention" despite the fact that they were unarmed and committing no crime, according to legal documents.

While the lawsuit is pushing for the city and NYPD to deploy mental health crisis first responders in all five boroughs — as mentioned above — there is a section of the city where a similar type of program is already taking place.

A pilot city program removing the NYPD from most mental health crisis calls has been operating in Central and East Harlem since early summer 2021.

The program is called B-HEARD.

Harlem's Mental Health Policing Program

The B-HEARD program launched in early June in Central and East Harlem, within the 25th, 28th and 32nd police precincts. The city chose that area because it saw the most mental health-related 911 calls last year — 7,400 in total — than any other part of the city.

Under the program, three-person teams composed of two paramedics and a social worker were dispatched to some mental health emergencies, overseen by the FDNY and Health + Hospitals rather than police.

During those three months, only about 23 percent of the nearly 1,500 mental health-related 911 calls made in Harlem were routed to B-HEARD teams — or 342 in total. The rest, about 83 percent, were handled by cops.

Still, the city touts some numbers as encouraging. More people accepted assistance from B-HEARD teams — about 91 percent — than in traditional 911 responses, which average round 86 percent. And far fewer people were hospitalized: 48 percent of people served by B-HEARD were taken in for care, compared to 86 percent in a typical response.

All told, there were about 18 mental health 911 calls each day between June 6 and Aug. 31 in the precincts where B-HEARD operated. The teams responded to 83 percent of the calls routed to them, operating 16 hours per day, seven days a week.

Read More:

• Harlem Mental Health Policing Program Expands, Amid Mixed Results
• Harlem Mental Health Policing Pilot Growing After Promising Start
• Police Removed From Harlem Mental Health Calls In New Program

Patch reporter Nick Garber contributed to this story.