WASHINGTON (CN) — The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the District of Columbia over its practice of sending police officers to respond to mental health crises which the group claims discriminates and endangers people suffering from mental health issues.
The suit, filed on behalf of the non-profit aid group Bread for the City, argues that by sending armed Metropolitan Police Department officers as the “default first responders,” the city is depriving those in crisis of the same treatment people suffering physical health emergencies receive.
The complaint outlines a pattern of the city prioritizing physical over mental health, creating a system where those in mental crisis can either get a timely response from police, or adequate care from mental health professionals, but not both.
“The District does not provide such equality,” the ACLU wrote in the complaint. “Its police-driven approach to mental health emergencies denies individuals with mental health disabilities appropriate care and pales in comparison to the District’s provision of physical health emergency services.”
The lawsuit specifically describes the wide gap in average response times for paramedics, who arrive within nine minutes of a call, and mental health professionals, who may arrive one to three hours later.
Michael Perloff, an ACLU D.C. staff attorney, said that the city needs to address the severe lack of investment in mental health care so that it can stop relying on police officers and creating unnecessarily dangerous situations.
“We want the same sort of infrastructure that exists for physical health emergencies to exist for mental health emergencies,” Perloff said.
The complaint outlines how Bread for the City has tried to mitigate the potential danger associated with a police response by trying to provide those mental health services themselves and avoiding a 911 call altogether. The organization has instead begun training its staff in de-escalation tactics, which has resulted in hourslong efforts to address an emergency to avoid involving police officers.
The organization provides food, clothing, health care, social services and legal assistance to low-income residents in Washington D.C., with centers in the Northwest and Southeast parts of the city.
Tracy Knight, the social services director for the organization’s NW Center, explained that the typical emergency they encounter involves someone sitting calmly in a room asking for support to deal with suicidal thoughts.
“There’s no danger involved, no need for police to be involved,” Knight said.
She said that police shouldn’t have to provide the same sort of medical care that’s expected of an EMT or a mental health professional, because that’s not what they’re trained to do.
“When people are having medical emergencies, we should be meeting them with trained medical helpers,” Knight said. “Police are not those people, they have different roles.”
Perloff echoed Knight’s comments.
“You wouldn’t send a postal service worker to put out a fire,” Perloff said.
According to a collaborative 2016 report, the most recent available information from the MPD and the Department of Behavioral Health, the department offers a 40-hour training course to become a Crisis Intervention Officer. That same report found that in 2016, 20% of all mental health calls resulted in the person in crisis being injured, a 7% increase from the start of the program in 2011.
The MPD did not respond to requests for comment.
The complaint comes just weeks after the Justice Department revealed its findings after a two-year investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. The investigation revealed systemic discrimination among officers against Black, Native American and disabled people in the city.
Cities across the country, such as Portland, San Francisco and Denver, have made efforts to transition away from using police officers and sending more mental health professionals to respond to such calls.
According to the Mapping Police Violence project, San Francisco expanded their Street Crisis Response Teams in 2022 to respond to 58% of mental health calls, 97% of which had no police involvement.
In comparison, D.C.'s community response teams, made up of mental health professionals, are only able to respond to 1% of mental health-related 911 calls, according to the complaint.
Follow @Ryan_Knappy
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
Arizona House votes to regulate deepfakes May 15, 2024 -
