East Harlem Council Rep Wants Police Out Of Mental Health Calls

EAST HARLEM, NY — An East Harlem lawmaker has introduced a bill in the City Council that would eliminate the NYPD's role in responding to mental health emergencies and create a new city service designed to respond to those calls.

The bill, sponsored by Councilmember Diana Ayala, would create an Office of Community Mental Health within the city's health department, which would be charged with creating a citywide mental health emergency response protocol.

It follows years of calls by advocates of police reform who say that mental health professionals, rather than armed officers, should handle calls about nonviolent people in crisis.

That discussion has played out frequently in East Harlem, where residents have complained for years about visible drug use on neighborhood streets — but where some community leaders are divided over the role police should play.

The debate was reignited last week when footage of police officers taking an impaired man into custody circulated widely on social media.

Ayala and other elected officials said they were disappointed by the video, since they had worked to send homeless outreach workers, NYPD mobile crisis teams and other specialists into the neighborhood to avoid having uniformed police serve as first responders.

"For decades, and during this past year in particular, New Yorkers have held serious concerns about the way individuals with mental health disorders are treated by law enforcement," Ayala said in a statement. "Response tactics have been inconsistent and continue to drive people with mental illnesses into our criminal justice system."

The bill is co-sponsored by seven other council members, including Speaker Corey Johnson, as well as Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. It will be considered by the council's Committee on Mental Health on Feb. 22.

"Mental health advocates, providers, and New Yorkers that have been touched by mental illness have long called for shifting the responsibility for responding to mental health crises from the police to mental health professionals," Ayala said.

Ayala's bill was announced Friday along with 10 other City Council bills aimed at reforming the NYPD. Other proposed measures include removing the police commissioner's exclusive authority over discipline and requiring a city commission to investigate officers with a history of bias.

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