March 23 marks six years since Daniel Prude, an African American man from Chicago visiting relatives in Rochester, died of suffocation when police restrained him with a “spit-hood” during a mental health call. Organizers remembered the 41-year-old through a statewide vigil on the anniversary date followed by an ongoing week of action, which includes a virtual advocacy day and a non-police response teach-in.
Prude’s legacy now includes Daniel’s Law, a bill encouraging local governments across the state to develop civilian response teams to replace police on mental health calls unless the incident poses a public safety risk. The legislation used Prude’s name with his brother’s permission when State Sen. Samra Brouk introduced it in 2022. Proponents say police often escalate mental health crises and often lack the specialized training needed to address them.
The bill overwhelmingly leans on the Oregon-based CAHOOTS as a blueprint: the program responded to mental health calls for three decades without a single recorded death or serious injury through deploying two-person teams made up of a crisis worker and a medic. While the actual Daniel’s Law remains in the works, the state launched a Daniel’s Law taskforce years ago and recently granted funding towards Daniel’s Law pilot programs.
“We made historic progress with Daniel’s Law this year when the Office of Mental Health announced $6 million to fund three pilot programs in New York State,” said Brouk in an emailed statement. “The statewide enthusiasm for creating non-police, peer-led compassionate responses to individuals experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis is encouraging, and we must build upon this momentum by ensuring we secure additional funding in this final state budget for more pilots.”
Last month, the state split the money between the City of Rochester, Central Nassau Guidance andCounseling Services, and Children’s Home of Jefferson County. The State Senate’s “One House” budget resolution proposes another $15 million towards expanding Daniel’s Law pilots.
“This is personal, the death of my brother did not need to happen and our loss, his life, must mean something,” said Joe Prude, Daniel Prude’s brother, last month. “Having the City of Rochester as a location to receive the Daniel’s Law Pilot Program will help in the process of restoration and healing for my family and for the city. The pilot will create a system that recognizes the humanity of people experiencing mental health crises and treat them with care and compassion, getting them the help they need.”
Last year, the Rochester Community Advisory Board of the Daniel’s Law Coalition launched the first Daniel’s Law-style program, HOPE First Roc. The initiative operates in the city’s 19th Ward and Genesee-Jefferson neighborhoods, which both boast predominantly Black residents. Shay Herbert, a local New York Civil Liberties Union organizer, says Rochester boasts a long history of advocacy and Prude’s death inspired reforms to how police respond to mental health calls and protests.
“In Rochester, specifically just the understanding of why police aren’t equipped to respond to mental health crisis calls was blown up,” said Herbert. “Everybody was curious about what this looked like. Everybody knew that something had to be done, and we went from a community that [had] to do something…to now this collective understanding of Daniel’s Law or CAHOOTS, and in practice, what that looks like.”
Here in New York City, the anniversary coincides with Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently launching his Department of Community Safety. The office stems from a previous campaign promise and will reform B-Heard, a civilian mental health response pilot often criticized by Daniel’s Law proponents for deploying cops to program-eligible calls. Mamdani previously co-sponsored the bill as an assemblymember and told the Amsterdam News last year that his plan similarly stems from CAHOOT’s “results” as a model.
“The CAHOOTS program has been immensely successful, resolving almost 20% of all calls that come through the Eugene Police Department,” said Mamdani last year. “And of those estimated 24,000 calls that this program responded to in 2019, only 311 required police backup, showing that tasking teams with appropriate mental health and Crisis Response Training is effective and reduces strain on police.
“It’s this focus, specifically on outcomes and on results, that has driven the creation of this department and has also inspired the work of so many of my incredible colleagues who have been fighting for this at the state level.’
According to Vera Institute of Justice research, more than a million 911 calls could qualify for an “alternative response” each year in New York City. Beyond the 150,000 direct mental health crisis responses handled by the NYPD each year, the findings point to issues like civilian mediation, disturbances/unwanted persons and neighborhood conditions.
Key Daniel’s Law advocates, like New York Lawyers for the Public Interest’s (NYLPI) Ruth Lowenkron and Eudes Pierre Coalition’s Sheina Banatte, called Mamdani’s Department of Community Safety a step in the right direction. However, the current version remains a far cry from his vision for a $1.1 billion budget department. And funding is crucial for this work: last year, CAHOOTS ceased operations in Eugene, Oregon due to budget (the program still operates in nearby Springfield, Oregon).
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Lowenkron. “It’s a baby step and we want much more than that. But it’s definitely a step in the right direction and the fact that he’s trying to do this in his earliest days of administration speaks volumes.”
Outside of Daniel’s Law and Mamdani’s Department of Community Safety, NYLPI pursues removing police from mental health responses through Baerga et al. v. the City of New York. The lawsuit challenges the legality of uniquely sending the NYPD for mental health-related calls under the United States Constitution, American Disabilities Act, and local human rights laws.
Banatte, who began her advocacy after NYPD officers killed her cousin Eudes Pierre during a mental health response, says she hopes Mamdani will key in local organizers in the Department of Community Safety rollout.
“We can’t let up, we have to make sure that every opportunity that we get,” said Banatte. “Especially like this with commemorating Daniel Prude, [it] reminds people that things are happening but they’re not happening fast enough. People are still being killed the way Daniel was killed. So we just got to keep fighting [and] continue bringing more awareness. And go all the way til Daniel’s Law’s passed.”