New Yorkers across the state commemorated Daniel Prude on what would have been his 47th birthday this past Saturday, Sept. 21, as they called for passing his namesake bill in Albany. The Chicago man who was visiting his brother in Rochester died at the hands of police there during a mental health response in March 2020. The incident sparked local, then-freshman, State Sen. Samra Brouk to introduce Daniel’s Law a year later, with permission from Prude’s family. 

If passed, the legislation ostensibly limits law enforcement’s participation in mental health responses across the state. Medical research points to police escalating psychiatric crises, leading to preventable use-of-force and death. The issue often stems from a lack of training, but there is no evidence training officers to respond to mental health crises actually helps. Body armor, flashing sirens, and guns can be enough to heighten such encounters. 

So advocates see civilian units, usually made up of intervention specialists and medical professionals, as the better alternative to deploying cops in non-violent scenarios. There is specifically a push for peer-led programs with people who live with a mental health condition at the forefront. Additionally, proponents say many cops do not want to respond to mental health crises either, and such measures would divert them towards focusing on index crimes like murder and rape.

Non-police crisis response teams already exist and are scattered across New York’s municipalities, but currently exist in a “patchwork system.”  Daniel’s Law would bring them under a governing council, shaping participating municipalities with uniform protocols developed through evidence-based research while remaining mindful of their varied populations.

Additionally, the bill incentivizes local governments with state funding to move towards developing non-police mental health response programs. Brouk, who chairs the State Senate’s Committee on Mental Health, adds that these teams would likely help cost-cutting as they are cheaper than “deploying law enforcement indiscriminately.”

While the bill awaits passage, this year’s state budget invested millions in Daniel’s Law provisions, like a technical help center and several pilot programs. Such measures are guided by the Daniel’s Law Task Force created by state law two years ago. 

Win Rozario’s mom Notan Eva Costa calls for the NYPD to serve misconduct charges against the officers who killed her son during a rally at One Police Plaza last Thursday, Sept. 18. Credit: Tandy Lau photo

“Oftentimes when looking [at legislation],  this transformative, that’s reforming a deeply entrenched system like our emergency and crisis service system, you often do see that pieces of a bill will get passed,” said Brouk. “And it won’t be until later that the entire bill is passed. Some of it is because the state government works slowly. These are hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, and you can learn a lot by doing a phased-in approach. 

“We deliberately put the Daniel’s Law Task Force into a previous budget so that we could really study what implementation would look like in New York State…what they came up with was the Technical Assistance Center and also a phased-in approach.”

The task force examined existing programs, particularly Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS), a mobile response unit that ceased long-time operations in Eugene, Ore., earlier this year due to funding (it still operates in the nearby Springfield, Ore.). For three decades, duos consisting of a crisis worker and a medical professional were deployed to mental health calls without a single documented death or serious injury. 

Another program, Toronto’s Gerstein Centre, was also highlighted by the task force. In 2023, Human Rights Watch researchers told the AmNews the Canadian service provider served as a strong “right-respecting” alternative model to Mayor Eric Adams’ then-directive to push involuntary commitments. 

Rochester, which is in Brouk’s district, launched HOPE First Roc, the first “Daniel’s Law-styled” mental health response team, this past July. The pilot is based on tried-and-true models like CAHOOTS and Denver’s Support Team Assisted Responder (STAR). Starting this fall, the Daniel’s Law Coalition-backed program will deploy in Rochester’s 19th Ward and Genesee-Jefferson neighborhoods — which boast majority Black populations — to offer voluntary, civilian crisis support. 

However, Daniel’s Law proponents do not know what New York City’s non-police response program is based on. The city launched the B-HEARD pilot in spring 2021, originally servicing the Harlem area. But the program faces regular criticism from mental health advocates. More than half of the calls requesting a B-HEARD were deemed ineligible according to the NYC Comptroller’s Office report this past March, sometimes due to unavailable dispatchers. Even a third of eligible calls did not receive the program’s services. 

New York City also faces a discrimination lawsuit accusing the NYPD-led mental health responses of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, filed by several organizations included in the Daniel’s Law Coalition, like New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and VOCAL-NY. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice weighed in on the class action, asking the courts to look at how people with mental illness were singled out by the city for police responses while other health conditions received a medical response. 

Advocates demand justice for Win Rozario 

Almost exactly four years after Prude’s death, Queens teenager Win Rozario called 911 on himself during a mental health crisis. Hailing from Ozone Park and the son of an airport worker, he originally emigrated from Bangladesh and quickly taught himself how to play basketball after arriving in the United States. He cooked for his mom and was an animal-lover with aspirations of owning his own farm.

NYPD officers Salvatore Alongi and Matthew Cianfrocco drew their tasers, and then guns, within two minutes of entering Rozario’s home on March 27, 2024, based on bodycam footage released by Attorney General Letitia James. They fatally shot him when he got hold of kitchen scissors after his mother, Notan Eva Costa, tried to de-escalate and restrain him, before ultimately attempting to shield him.

For more than a year, Rozario’s family called for accountability. On Sept. 10, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the city’s independent police oversight agency, substantiated misconduct charges against Alongi and Cianfrocco. 

Organizations like the South Asian advocacy group Desis Rising Up & Moving (D.R.U.M.) and the Justice Committee for families of police violence joined in organizing efforts by rallying at CCRB meetings and calling the offices of the Mayor and Police Commissioner. They also raised money for Rozario’s family to move apartments so they would not be reminded of where he was killed.

“Win’s mom still had to cook in the same kitchen that her son was killed in,” said D.R.U.M. racial justice organizer Simran Thind. “It was only through D.R.U.M. and [Justice Committee] organizing [that] we raised money to make sure that the families were able to move [and] find a new place.”

However, the clock was running out to serve the officers within 18 months of the misconduct complaint last week. After the deadline, CCRB prosecutors would need to prove the officers committed a crime under a much higher burden of proof — such an issue delayed a disciplinary hearing for the killing of Allan Feliz in 2019 for roughly half a decade. 

Last Thursday, Sept. 18, Rozario’s family and supporters took to One Police Plaza to call for Mayor Eric Adams and Commissioner Jessica Tisch to serve the officers before time ran out this month. Proponents included New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) executive director Donna Lieberman, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and State Senator John Liu. 

“The killing of Win Rozario is yet another devastating reminder that we must end our over-reliance on police as first responders,” said Lieberman. “That we must instead treat mental health crises as what they are: a public health issue, with police involved only if and when necessary.”

Just hours after the rally, Tisch served Alongi and Cianfrocco their charges. A long process awaits. The officers will undergo an NYPD disciplinary trial. They face termination if found guilty, based on departmental guidelines. However, any ruling by the NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials could be overruled by the police commissioner — earlier this year, Tisch decided not to fire Lt. Jonathan Rivera for killing Feliz despite a guilty verdict.  

“The truth is, Alongi and Cianfrocco should already have been fired, and it’s painful that we still have the whole discipline process ahead of us,” said Costa in a statement. “I hope this means the NYPD won’t try to play tricks in the months ahead and that Alongi and Cianfrocco are fired as soon as possible. Without Win this past year and a half, I have felt like I lost a part of myself. I am fighting for Win and all New Yorkers so that all our children get a chance to grow up. Young people struggling with mental health issues should not live in fear of being killed by the NYPD.”

Thind points to organizing as key to securing the charges. She says D.R.U.M. is working more on advocating for removing police involvement from mental health responses on behalf of Rozario’s family. 

Daniel’s Day continues in Brooklyn

Win Rozario was one of many names remembered this past Saturday during Daniel’s Day programming in Crown Heights. Assemblywoman Monique Chandler-Waterman hosts the event each year in the district since she won a special election for her seat in 2022. She learned of Daniel’s Day — which happens each Saturday of Prude’s birthday week — from other cities like Rochester and Albany. 

Chandler-Waterman holds the event each year in her district on Utica Avenue between Montgomery Street and East New York Avenue, where police killed Jamaican American Saheed Vassell during a mental health crisis in 2018. A few blocks away, NYPD officers killed Haitian American Eudes Pierre during a mental health response in 2021. Another Black New Yorker from Chandler-Waterman’s district, Dwayne Jeune, was also killed by the NYPD while experiencing a mental health condition in East Flatbush.

“We’re here to pay homage to these families,” Chandler-Waterman told the AmNews. “And making sure that we create a space for wellness and feeling, but also for people to understand what we’re doing in the state with Daniel’s Law…you got to make sure that there are services right now that we can get as a community for our loved ones [voluntarily] when they have a mental [health] crisis. So that’s what we’re advocating for.”

Pierre’s cousin Sheina Banatte spent the past half-decade championing mental health reform, including Daniel’s Law. She initially picked up the advocacy to comfort her grieving aunt and other cousin. 

“At first, I was doing it for them to give them some hope,” said Banatte. “And to let them know that as much as Eudes matters to us, we’re going to make sure that he matters to other people, and they know that he’s not going to be defined by [how] he was killed. [but by] the way he lived, the way he loved.”

Today, Pierre and Vassell are remembered in Crown Heights beyond Daniel’s Day. In 2022, the city renamed a busy block on Eastern Parkway to Eudes Pierre Way. This year, the intersection of Crown Street and Utica Avenue was renamed Saheed Vassell Way.

Mamdani’s Department of Community Safety offers hope

During the Daniel’s Day programming in Crown Heights, healthcare union members from 1199SEIU reiterated their endorsement of Democratic mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani as a key solution to implementing non-police mental health responses through his proposed Department of Community Safety. Chandler-Waterman told the crowd she wouldn’t tell them who to vote for but asked them to register and extolled her assembly colleague’s track record. 

This past spring, Mamdani unveiled his Department of Community Safety proposal, which included overhauling B-HEARD to expand into every neighborhood. His plan specifically pointed to CAHOOTS as a model because of its results. 

“The CAHOOTS program has been immensely successful, resolving almost 20% of all calls that come through the Eugene Police Department,” said Mamdani over the phone in April. “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.”

With his community mourning Rozario, Bangladeshi American Police Association co-founder Shamsul Haque believes Mamdani’s plan can prevent future tragedies. The retired Lieutenant Commander who spent 21 years in the NYPD believes medical professionals can handle most non-violent mental health calls and call in police if a response becomes dangerous. 

“Lots of times, people believe more police is a panacea for all the problems,” said Haque. “But…America locks up more people than any other nation, and yet our states aren’t safer, our communities aren’t healthier. The answer isn’t always more police or more prisons; we need more smart safety, not just enforcement, and that’s why I’m supporting Zohran Mamdani’s vision. 

“His Department of Community Safety will take on issues like homelessness. Lots of officers don’t want to respond to homelessness issues, so our police can actually focus on serious crime and not just social crisis. I believe that it is time to stop asking officers to do every job and start building a system that actually solves the root.”

Haque says the NYPD’s procedure for mental health responses involves assessing the situation and deciding whether the individual needs medical assistance. If so, the officer requests EMS for hospital transport. If the person is violent, then the officer’s role is to bring in his or her supervisor. He adds that deploying lethal weapons hinges on split-second decisions. “This is a very huge responsibility [that] falls on the shoulder of the officers,” said Haque.
Brouk told the Amsterdam News that Mamdani’s plan very much reflects the tenets of Daniel’s Law given his peer-led approach and inspiration from programs like CAHOOTS. “We didn’t reinvent the wheel,” she said. “We looked around the country to see where this has been working for decades, and what we can use from those learnings to adapt that to New York State.”

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