Five years since Daniel Prude’s death, namesake bill inches closer to law

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This past March 23 marked five years since the police killing of Daniel Prude during a mental health crisis response in Rochester. The deadly encounter sparked local reforms and bolstered national movements like the 2020 summer protests for George Floyd, who was murdered by officer Derek Chauvin about two months later.

In 2021, then-rookie State Senator Samra Brouk introduced Daniel’s Law with permission from Prude’s family. The bill would ostensibly limit local law enforcement’s role in responding to mental health crises. Many municipalities already have civilian mobile units to deploy instead of police to mental health calls, such as the Person in Crisis team in Rochester and B-HEARD in New York City. Daniel’s Law would connect them to state funding and more uniform protocols.

“The entire point of Daniel’s Law is that every New Yorker should be able to count on a safe mental health response when they need it, and right now that’s not the case,” said Brouk over the phone. “Even within certain cities, it’s a patchwork system. In addition to this patchwork system of the state, and the entire point of having Daniel’s Law passed and be fully funded, is that we say goodbye to a patchwork of response plans and hello to a consistent, uniform response so that everyone is safe,no matter where they are in New York State.”

Brouk reintroduced the bill this year with amendments, including the creation of a statewide Behavioral Health Technical Assistance Center. The legislation passed the New York Senate’s Mental Health Committee with bipartisan support and the State Senate Majority’s One-House budget resolution includes $20 million to enact the first phase of Daniel’s Law and $2 million to create an assistance center.

Phase one would fund six to eight pilot programs across New York State, from urban to suburban to rural communities. While Daniel’s Law intends to provide more structure and consistency for non-police mental health call responses, Brouk said the legislation also acknowledges regional and geographic differences.

“Notably, [Daniel’s Law] is coming with dollars,” said Brouk. “The biggest piece here is that not only is the state saying this is something that’s important to do and it’s the right thing to do, and it’s going to help alleviate our mental health crisis, but we also are putting money behind that to aid in it.”

Advocates in the Daniel’s Law coalition such as Ruth Lowenkron, director of the Disability Justice Program for the New York Lawyers for Public Interest, feel the recent push is optimistic.

“We are very excited, or certainly cautiously optimistic, about the push for Daniel’s Law that is coming very, very strongly from the chairs of the Mental Health Committee,” Lowenkron said. “We are seeing some movement that Daniel’s Law is definitely making and has made an appearance in both One-House budgets. More or less, the [State Assembly and Senate] are thinking of it the same way, and we’ve been advocating very much with the legislature [and] with the governor to say now is the time.”

Daniel’s Law draws significant inspiration from the Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (CAHOOTS) program in Eugene, Ore., which dates back to 1989 without a single serious injury or death during a response. The mobile service usually sends just two people — a medical worker like a nurse or EMT and a crisis worker trained in behavioral health — to respond to mental health calls. In 2021, just 301 of the 16,479 requests required police backup.

However, the City of Eugene discontinued CAHOOTS services this past week because the parent organization White Bird “does not have the financial capacity to provide a full-service mobile crisis service.” The program will continue to operate in Springfield, Ore.

Here in New York City, the NYPD runs the B-HEARD pilot, which only covers a portion of the city, mainly in Black- and Brown-majority neighborhoods, and not every call will be eligible or guarantee a non-police response. The city still deploys the NYPD to mental health responses with “increased risk of harm,” including situations on subway tracks or when a crime is in progress. The pilot also only operates 16 hours a day.

This past fiscal year, 14,951 of the 20,451 qualifying mental health dispatches were diverted to B-HEARD; 7,417 led to patient contact and 3,691 mental health assessments. Another 30,878 mental health-related calls did not qualify for B-HEARD.

Recently, the Richmond Hill community held a vigil for Win Rozario, a Bangladeshi teenager killed by police while responding to his 911 call for help during a mental health crisis.

While proponents await Daniel’s Law to actually become law, the state previously established a Daniel’s Law task force in the budget to determine how the legislation would look like in practice if passed. They met most recently this past December.

Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.