Counselors join cops in mental-illness fight

NYPD cops and civilian mentalhealth workers will respond to 911 calls about emotionally disturbed people as part of a $37 million plan Mayor de Blasio announced on Monday.

The initiative will involve emergencies in two “high-need” precincts, the 25th in Manhattan’s East Harlem and the 47th in the northern part of The Bronx, City Hall said.

Each precinct will get two “CoResponse Teams,” composed of a pair of cops and a counselor. The teams, when up and running, will end the current policy of only sending cops or paramedics to respond to 911 calls about deranged individuals.

The NYPD will also create a “Behavioral Health Unit” and use newly hired Health Department workers who have previously struggled with psychological problems to help train its Emergency Services Unit, City Hall said.

The planned moves follow the recent release of a scathing report by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams that blamed de Blasio’s inaction on the city’s mental-health crisis for the fatal police shootings of at least 15 unhinged people in the past three years.

The new program will fall under the umbrella of First Lady Chirlane McCray’s controversial and costly ThriveNYC mental-health initiative, which has come under fire for failing to produce measurable results despite its $250-million-a-year price tag.

City Councilman Robert Holden (D–Queens) said, “ThriveNYC was supposed to ‘close the gaps’ in the city’s mental-health services, but it’s now apparent that nearly $1 billion over the next four years was not enough to accomplish that.”

Holden added, “This mayor continues to cost the taxpayers of this city tens of millions of dollars every time he realizes that one of his programs is not working.”

Williams criticized de Blasio’s focus on providing the NYPD with additional resources, saying, “We need a non-police-first response to mental-health crises, and this plan does not even put us on a path toward that goal.”

Law-enforcement sources also said that pairing cops with counselors was a recipe for disaster, with one warning that “some innocent person is going to die real soon with this program.”

Mayor de Blasio is finally waving in the right direction when it comes to handling crisis mental-health emergencies — but just barely. With great fanfare, the mayor on Monday announced that trained mental-health workers will soon start joining cops in responding to emergency calls involving people in psychotic crisis.

But it’s only being piloted in two “highneed” precincts, in Harlem and The Bronx, to start. And First Lady Chirlane McCray’s ThriveNYC will lead the effort — despite Thrive’s well-established record of mismanagement.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams politely but pointedly noted that he’s been pushing on this front for years, flagging the doubling (from 2009 to 2018) of 911 calls regarding emotionally disturbed persons.

Which, by the way, cops may not be allowed to say anymore; the mayor’s plan includes a possible ban on the term “EDP.” When politicians focus on new labels you should be suspicious of how much substance is changing.

De Blasio was supposed to report on this issue a year ago, but even the members of the task force that produced it haven’t seen the final draft, let alone the public.

Yet suddenly, here comes a new $37 million initiative — $23 million for new mental-health-response teams to intervene precrisis, plus $14 million to focus on those whose untreated serious mental illness poses a risk of violent behavior — under Thrive’s aegis.

Williams plainly deserved much, perhaps most, of the credit here. Instead, City Hall blatantly sidelined him.

We have no doubt that every member of the NYPD looks forward to having someone else — hopefully, someone better trained — take point on mental-health-related public-safety crises.

Let’s all just hope that the mayor’s serious about making the change — rather than mouthing the right sentiments to get past the political crisis of the ongoing failure of his signature program.