NYPD Out of Mental Health!

For too long, NYC has responded to New Yorkers struggling with unmet mental health, substance use and housing needs with criminalization and police intervention rather than care. This approach is ineffective, violent, a waste of resources, and further isolates people from the support they need. Justice Committee is organizing to ensure our city takes a transformative approach to these issues that focuses on ensuring all New Yorkers have what they need to thrive.

The Harms of Policing in Mental Health

The presence of armed officers is frightening to most of us. It’s even more terrifying for New Yorkers who are already in crisis or have increased vulnerabilities to becoming distressed. When police respond to those they perceive to be struggling with mental health challenges - a perception that often overlaps with substance use and homelessness - too often it results in escalation, violence, and even death, regardless of any training the officers receive.

Stigma, Criminalization, and Violence: Mental health stigma is weaponized by systems of policing and control. When society treats mental health challenges as something to fear rather than something to care for, it becomes easier to justify police violence against people in crisis. In New York City, we often see bias against those with mental health or substance use challenges take the form of “quality of life” complaints, which are then responded to with expanded policing and surging low-level arrests; or, mental health challenges are depicted as the reason for heinous acts of violence, leading to further dehumanization and criminalization.

The Stats

People with serious mental illness are 11.6x more likely to experience use of force in police encounters.
In 2025, across the United States, police killed at least 116 people in the context of responding to reports of someone behaving erratically or having a mental health crisis across.
At least 10 of those were in NYC: Chez Fray, Royston Bacchus, Justin Coleman, Lahione Soto, Jesse Campbell, Sheldon Ennis, Damon Louther, Jumaane Wright, King Wong, and Winston Johnson.

Lives Lost & Harmed

On March 27, 2024, 19-year old Bangladeshi teenager Win Rozario was tased and shot at least five times by NYPD Officers Salvatore Alongi and Matthew Cianfrocco in under two minutes, all in front of his mom and little brother. Officers Alongi and Cianfrocco created a crisis and escalated it multiple times, making no attempt to de-escalate, unjustifiably killing Win while risking the lives of Win’s mother and brother. Win had a history of mental health complexities.

Learn more about Win's life and the fight to fire Officers Salvatore Alongi & Matthew Cianfrocco.

On April 14, 2019, Kawaski Trawick was killed by NYPD Officers Brendan Thompson and Herbert Davis in his own home in only 112 seconds. Mr. Trawick had been cooking at home in his supportive housing facility when Officers Thompson and Davis broke the chain holding the apartment door closed, illegally entered Mr. Trawick’s apartment, barked orders and refused to answer questions, and tased and shot him four times, refusing to provide medical aid as Mr. Trawick bled out.

Neither officer has been disciplined for killing Mr. Trawick.

16-year-old Andrew Henson, who has autism and limited speech abilities, was assaulted by NYPD officers in 2018 while attending a speech evaluation. After arriving onsite via ambulance, with NYPD accompaniment, Andrew and his mother, Christine, tried to go get food. But the EMT grabbed Andrew, and within seconds, multiple officers rushed over and piled on top of him. They twisted his neck and forced his knees and face into a bench, ignoring his mother’s pleading for them to stop and warnings that Andrew has special needs. Since then, Andrew has been mistreated by the NYPD multiple times; each incident was re-traumatizing and caused him to regress. Christine has also testified that she has struggled to find adequate support for her son’s needs. Read more about Andrew & his experiences with police in Christine's own words.

On April 4, 2018, NYPD Officers Leon Dinham, Anthony Bottiglieri, Bekim Molic, and Omar Rafiq shot and killed 35-year-old Saheed Vassell, a young Black father who had known mental health complexities. Multiple NYPD Strategic Response Group and Anti-Crime officers responded to 911 calls alleging someone was holding a gun; when they arrived, they approached and shot Mr. Vassell 10 times without attempting to de-escalate or verifying he actually had a firearm – which he did not.

On September 24, 2008, Iman Morales was tasered while standing on the ledge of a 10-foot high storefront awning and fell to his death. Mr. Morales had long struggled with mental illness and was having a bad reaction to new medication. His mother plead for officers to bring an inflatable bag to break his fall - in accordance with NYPD guidelines for using a Taser on someone who is elevated. However, the NYPD ignored her pleas and made no attempts to catch Mr. Morales. The Lieutenant who ordered the tasing killed himself a week later. No officers were held accountable for Mr. Morales’ death.

28-year old Mohamed Bah was killed by NYPD Officers Edwin Mateo, Andrew Kress, Michael Green, and Joseph McCormack and Lt. Michael Licitra on September 25, 2012. Mohamed’s mother, Hawa Bah, had recently traveled from Guinea to care for her son after becoming concerned about his psychological and physical health. Mrs. Bah called 911 for an ambulance but was met by the NYPD. When officers arrived on the scene, they ordered Mrs. Bah to wait outside, refused to let her speak with her son, forced their way into Mohamed’s room against his will, and shot him multiple times. The last shot was fired by Officer Edwin Mateo at close range to Mohamed’s head, after he was already incapacitated and laying on the ground.

JC's Work

Along with supporting and organizing with families whose loved ones were killed by the NYPD and survivors of police violence (see above), JC fights to reduce - and ultimately end - law enforcement involvement in mental health response and to ensure NYC invests in non-coercive, community-based, culturally competent services to ensure all New Yorkers have what they need to thrive.

Invest in Care, not Cops

Since 2020, every year, JC has made demands for investments in mental healthcare, and corresponding divestments from police-first approaches to unmet mental health, housing, and substance use needs. In 2025, JC advocated for and helped win major investments in mental healthcare via the Progressive Council’s Crisis To Care campaign, including expanded mobile mental health treatment and syringe service programs, hiring mental health peer specialists and supporting frontline EMS workers, creating 500 new Justice-Involved Supportive Housing units, and additional support for survivors of gender-based violence. While these are all important initiatives that make our communities safer, $34 million in funding is PENNIES compared to what’s really needed - and the billions NYC spends on police each year.

Stop Intro 2210!

In 2018, JC successfully organized families, allies, and New Yorkers to shut down Intro 2210, a bill which would have cemented a permanent NYPD role in mental health response and thus pave the way for continued police violence. As the Hawa Bah and Eric Vassell, the mother and father of Mohamed Bah and Saheed Vassell, wrote in a powerful op-ed, “Not only does Intro 2210 keep officers responding to many mental health calls, it doesn’t follow best practices and has no provisions for accountability for officers who will use excessive or deadly force, or engage in other misconduct… New York City needs change, but we need the right kind of change. Quality mental health care for Black and brown communities didn’t exist for our sons — and Intro 2210 does nothing to change that.”

Crisis Response in NYC Today

B-HEARD

In 2021, the Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD) pilot was launched by Mayor Bill de Blasio as a collaboration between NYC Health + Hospitals and FDNY, with the intention of dispatching health professionals and EMTs instead of NYPD officers to 911 mental health calls. However, B-HEARD has consistently failed even by its own metrics: it does not follow proven best practices, manages only a fraction of mental health calls citywide, overrelies on traumatizing involuntary hospitalizations, and has demonstrably failed to reduce police involvement in mental health response, further endangering vulnerable New Yorkers when they need care the most.

Department of Community Safety

Mayor Mamdani’s campaign promise of a Department of Community Safety (DCS) and his creation of an Office of Community Safety (OCS) as a first step is an important acknowledgment of the need to shift away from harmful police-first approaches. But how this office is actually developed and implemented will ultimately determine whether it meaningfully improves community safety and well-being or further entrenches police involvement and criminalization of those who need care. In May 2026, nearly 50 organizations sent a letter to Mayor Mamdani providing guidance and recommendations to shape OCS. Chief among them: building a robust system of crisis response teams with community leadership; establishing authority to minimize the NYPD’s role in crisis response; ending approaches that increase harm and criminalization; transforming 911, 311 and 988 call triage and dispatch systems; and investing in community-based preventative and long-term care. Crucially, Mamdani’s focus on expanding the B-HEARD program runs the risk of turning a failed pilot program into city-wide policy and entrenching the NYPD in mental health response, while deflating urgency and political will for real transformative change.

What We’re Fighting For

We envision a New York City where mental health and substance use challenges are met with culturally competent, trauma-informed community-based care – not armed police officers. This includes:

Meeting New Yorkers’ needs: wraparound preventative, crisis, and post-crisis services for substance use, mental health complexities, housing, and more.
- A truly non-police mental health crisis response system is only one part of the holistic strategy that is needed to address the significant gaps in mental health care that leave so many New Yorkers without support. Any new crisis response program must be paired with strong investments in culturally-specific, neighborhood-based preventative & post-crisis care.
Decriminalizing mental health: massive public education campaign addressing stigma and debunking myths
Changing laws: legally removing state and local police requirements from mental health response according the NYS Mental Health & Hygiene Law
Investing in alternatives:
- The city should phase out B-HEARD and instead work with crisis response experts and directly impacted New Yorkers to develop non-police response systems rooted in established best practices.
- Successful alternatives must include 24/7 operations, teams composed of peers and community-based staff, strong connections to local behavioral health services, a robust centralized training infrastructure, and the prioritization of respite service and long-term care over involuntary ER drop-offs.
Collaborating with those most directly impacted: community safety must be defined and led by the people most impacted by criminalization and the organizations that are accountable to them.

Christine Henson's Testimony to City Council on Public Safety & Mental Health

Jun 12

LETTER: Almost 50 Orgs Write to Mayor Mamdani’s New Office of Community Safety

May 1

Mamdani’s Office of Community Safety Fails to Effectively Address Mental Health Concerns

Mar 20

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