New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced the city will dispatch mental health teams to some 911 calls instead of NYPD officers.
“This is the first time in our history that health professionals will be the default responders to mental health emergencies,” said New York City first lady Chirlane McCray. “Treating mental health crises as mental health challenges, and not public safety ones, is the modern and most appropriate approach.”
De Blasio said the hope of the new policy, which will be rolled out in two neighborhoods, will be peaceful outcomes for mental health calls.
“The vast majority of cases you’re talking about, you have an opportunity for a peaceful outcome with a health-center approach, and that’s what we are focusing on here,” de Blasio said. “Obviously, if you have proven professional addressing people, they’re going to be best able to get a good outcome.”
New York City responded to 1.8 million 911 emergencies in 2019, 170,000 of which were mental health calls that McCray said concerned “people who just needed help” with “no indication of violence.”
The new policy will see EMS healthcare professionals and mental health crisis workers respond to these types of calls. NYPD officers will not be default first responders. However, in a case where someone is reported to have a weapon, or is exhibiting violent behavior, an NYPD officer will accompany the mental health professionals.
ThriveNYC Director Susan Herman said a pilot program of NYPD officers and mental health professionals responding together to these calls will be put on hold so that the city can see if the “even more health-centered approach to these kinds of mental health emergencies would be successful.”
“Our officers applaud the intervention by health professionals in these non-violent cases and as always stand by to assist,” said Police Commissioner Dermot Shea.
Patrick Lynch, the president of the NYPD officers’ union, expressed skepticism of the plan in a Tuesday statement.
“We need a complete overhaul of the rest of our mental health care system so that we can help people before they are in crisis, rather than just picking up the pieces afterward,” Lynch said.
The news comes after the high-profile police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. in Philadelphia last month, which sparked protests and riots across the city. Police responded to a mental health call and arrived to find Wallace holding a knife. Wallace began approaching officers with the knife and disobeyed commands to stop, leading to the shooting.
