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.<\/p>\n
Non-police crisis response teams already exist and are scattered across New York\u2019s municipalities, but currently exist in a \u201cpatchwork system.\u201d\u00a0 Daniel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s Committee on Mental Health, adds that these teams would likely help cost-cutting as they are cheaper than \u201cdeploying law enforcement indiscriminately.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the bill awaits passage, this year\u2019s state budget invested millions in Daniel\u2019s Law provisions, like a technical help center and several pilot programs. Such measures are guided by the Daniel\u2019s Law Task Force <\/a>created by state law two years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOftentimes when looking [at legislation],\u00a0 this transformative, that\u2019s reforming a deeply entrenched system like our emergency and crisis service system, you often do see that pieces of a bill will get passed,\u201d said Brouk. \u201cAnd it won\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe deliberately put the Daniel\u2019s Law Task Force into a previous budget so that we could really study what implementation would look like in New York State\u2026what they came up with was the Technical Assistance Center and also a phased-in approach.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another program, Toronto\u2019s Gerstein Centre, was also highlighted by the task force. In 2023, Human Rights Watch researchers told the AmNews<\/a> the Canadian service provider served as a strong \u201cright-respecting\u201d alternative model to Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 then-directive to push involuntary commitments.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rochester, which is in Brouk\u2019s district, launched HOPE First Roc<\/a>, the first \u201cDaniel\u2019s Law-styled\u201d mental health response team, this past July. The pilot is based on tried-and-true models like CAHOOTS and Denver\u2019s Support Team Assisted Responder (STAR). Starting this fall, the Daniel\u2019s Law Coalition-backed program will deploy in Rochester\u2019s 19th Ward and Genesee-Jefferson neighborhoods \u2014 which boast majority Black populations \u2014 to offer voluntary, civilian crisis support.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, Daniel\u2019s Law proponents do not know what New York City\u2019s 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<\/a> from mental health advocates. More than half of the calls requesting a B-HEARD were deemed ineligible according to the NYC Comptroller\u2019s Office<\/a> report this past March, sometimes due to unavailable dispatchers. Even a third of eligible calls did not receive the program\u2019s services.\u00a0<\/p>\n New York City also faces a discrimination lawsuit<\/a> accusing the NYPD-led mental health responses of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, filed by several organizations included in the Daniel\u2019s Law Coalition, like New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and VOCAL-NY. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice weighed in<\/a> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n Advocates demand justice for Win Rozario\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Almost exactly four years after Prude\u2019s 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<\/a> after arriving in the United States. He cooked for his mom and was an animal-lover with aspirations of owning his own farm.<\/p>\n NYPD officers Salvatore Alongi and Matthew Cianfrocco drew their tasers, and then guns, within two minutes of entering Rozario\u2019s home on March 27, 2024, based on bodycam footage<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n For more than a year, Rozario\u2019s family called for accountability. On Sept. 10, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the city\u2019s independent police oversight agency, substantiated misconduct charges against Alongi and Cianfrocco.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019s family to move apartments so they would not be reminded of where he was killed.<\/p>\n \u201cWin\u2019s mom still had to cook in the same kitchen that her son was killed in,\u201d said D.R.U.M. racial justice organizer Simran Thind. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 such an issue delayed a disciplinary hearing for the killing of Allan Feliz in 2019 for roughly half a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last Thursday, Sept. 18, Rozario\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe killing of Win Rozario is yet another devastating reminder that we must end our over-reliance on police as first responders,\u201d said Lieberman. \u201cThat we must instead treat mental health crises as what they are: a public health issue, with police involved only if and when necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 earlier this year, Tisch decided not to fire Lt. Jonathan Rivera for killing Feliz despite a guilty verdict.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is, Alongi and Cianfrocco should already have been fired, and it\u2019s painful that we still have the whole discipline process ahead of us,\u201d said Costa in a statement. \u201cI hope this means the NYPD won\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s family.\u00a0<\/p>\n Daniel\u2019s Day continues in Brooklyn<\/strong><\/p>\n Win Rozario was one of many names remembered this past Saturday during Daniel\u2019s 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\u2019s Day \u2014 which happens each Saturday of Prude\u2019s birthday week \u2014 from other cities like Rochester and Albany.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019s district, Dwayne Jeune, was also killed by the NYPD while experiencing a mental health condition in East Flatbush.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re here to pay homage to these families,\u201d Chandler-Waterman told the AmNews. \u201cAnd making sure that we create a space for wellness and feeling, but also for people to understand what we\u2019re doing in the state with Daniel\u2019s Law\u2026you 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\u2019s what we\u2019re advocating for.\u201d<\/p>\n Pierre\u2019s cousin Sheina Banatte spent the past half-decade championing mental health reform, including Daniel\u2019s Law. She initially picked up the advocacy to comfort her grieving aunt and other cousin.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt first, I was doing it for them to give them some hope,\u201d said Banatte. \u201cAnd to let them know that as much as Eudes matters to us, we\u2019re going to make sure that he matters to other people, and they know that he\u2019s not going to be defined by [how] he was killed. [but by] the way he lived, the way he loved.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, Pierre and Vassell are remembered in Crown Heights beyond Daniel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s Department of Community Safety offers hope<\/strong><\/p>\n During the Daniel\u2019s 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\u2019t tell them who to vote for but asked them to register and extolled her assembly colleague\u2019s track record.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WinRozario.jpg\")
Win Rozario\u2019s 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<\/p>\n