Jumaane Williams, the Public Advocate, has expressed his dissatisfaction with the approach both city and state authorities are adopting towards addressing mental health issues. These authorities have been accused of adopting a reactive ‘ambulance-chasing’ approach as opposed to initiating sustainable solutions. Williams conveyed this sentiment in letters, wherein he urged the start of an unutilized review procedure with regards to the tragic police shooting of an elderly mentally challenged man from Queens.
In his letters, Williams appealed to the state to assemble a ‘Critical Incident Review Panel’ as a mechanism to investigate the grim circumstances of the fatal incident and to highlight the inadequacies in the system that may have contributed. ‘We can’t seem to pinpoint where the service delivery is failing,’ said Williams during a discourse. ‘These panels have the potential to uncover that, essentially determining where the service failure occurred for this person and obligating a rectification of the service gap.’
The call for these panels is in the wake of the mayor and governor endorsing an expansion of measures to involuntarily commit individuals seen as incapable of fulfilling their fundamental needs to medical facilities. The governor’s solid stance on this has emerged as a prominently disputed aspect during the ongoing state budget discussions.
The uproar for addressing the city’s mental health crisis has been amplified due to a spate of violent altercations involving severely mentally ill persons. Williams emphasized the pressing requirement for holistic solutions and proposed that a formal examination process could aid in identifying any service inadequacies that may have added to the tragedies.
Highlighting the urgency for such a solution was an incident where police shot a mentally ill man after he reportedly wielded a large knife haphazardly on the streets of Astoria. Following multiple 911 alerts, the incident happened on a Monday morning. The police used their tasers on the man while commanding him to surrender his weapon, but the ineffectiveness of the taser led to them resorting to fatal gunfire.
Further underscoring the depth of the issue is the known history of the man’s mental health difficulties, with police having been dispatched previously to calls regarding his distress. Unfortunately, the leaders under the most scrutiny here, the mayor and governor, seem to be the ones propagating reactive solutions, leading Williams to accuse them of a lack of proactive initiative. ‘They’re showing a lack of proactive leadership, and we’re pushing them to step up and take effective action,’ stated Williams.
While some might argue that a formal review process has in fact been implemented, the state’s Office of Mental Health’s commissioner stated in a February hearing that each instance involves substantial individual review consideration. A spokesperson for the state Office of Mental Health spoke in favor of amending New York’s existing involuntary commitment laws, arguing it would ‘assist those struggling with mental health during their moments of crisis.’
Contrarily, Mayor Adams dismissed the proposal to convene a review panel, accusing it of deliberate neglect. He attributed Williams’ initiative as one reason why the Democratic Party seems to have lost touch with the working class. ‘The citizens who use the subway or walk on our streets can clearly observe that bureaucracy expansion is not the solution to the mental health crisis,’ he commented.
The proposed panel would include local city officials, state representatives, and members of various agencies. They can be set up either at the discretion of the state’s mental health office or a local municipality.
At present, activists are rallying to encourage the state to establish specific standards or requirements in relation to these review panels. The current state of affairs has led the CEO of the Mental Health Association in New York State to criticize the approach as being more of a paper tiger than an effective solution.
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