Eric Adams’ plan to commit unstable, harmful NYC homeless faces challenge
A coalition of lawyers and activists has asked a federal judge to immediately halt the implementation of Mayor Eric Adams’ new mental health policy that calls for city cops to bring homeless people involuntarily for psychiatric evaluation and potential committal to a hospital.
The group, which included New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, filed a request for a temporary restraining order that would block the rollout of the policy in an existing Manhattan federal class-action lawsuit.
In the legal brief filed Thursday, attorneys argued that the proposed policy would violate the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as the New York City human rights law.
Adams announced the new policy at a press briefing last week and gave examples of people who might be detained under the new directive, citing a “shadow boxer on the street corner in Midtown, mumbling to himself as he jabs at an invisible adversary.”
In the legal filing, attorneys argued the directive was vague and could subject people in New York to unlawful detention.
“The City’s new policy is bereft of details as to how an officer may in fact determine whether Mayor Adams’ shadow boxer is unable to take care of his basic needs or is merely exercising,” the filing states.
“If the Involuntary Removal Policy is permitted to continue to be implemented, Plaintiffs and countless other New Yorkers will suffer irreparable harm, including a substantially increased likelihood that they will be subjected to unlawful detention and involuntary hospitalization just for exhibiting behavior perceived by a police officer to be unusual — whether the individual has a mental disability or not,” it adds.
The request was filed in a class-action suit brought by Justin E. Baerga in Manhattan federal court in 2021.
The existing suit seeks to remove police officers as first responders to people who are in need of mental health treatment.
“The new involuntary removal policy doubles down on decades of failed, police-centered City mandates just when we should be creating health-centered supports for people with mental illnesses,” Marinda van Dalen, an attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, said in a statement Thursday.
Judge Paul Crotty will decide whether to grant the restraining order.
A spokesperson for the city Law Department said the mayor stands by the plan.
“Mayor Adams’ compassionate plan to connect New Yorkers with severe mental illness to support and care fully complies with federal and state law, and we look forward to making our case before the court,” the spokesperson said.