Genaro watched as 4 cops crowded out of the elevator, their boots thudding by means of the slim hallway of the residence constructing the place he lives together with his mother and father and brother, in Flushing, Queens. The officer in entrance carried a protect that blocked her from head to knees, as if she had been dealing with down a riot, although Genaro was alone.
He tried to clarify that this wasn’t what his household wanted. He’d referred to as 911 to ask for an ambulance for his older brother Steven, who’s recognized with schizophrenia. Steven had been agitated and moody for weeks, not sleeping and smoking an excessive amount of marijuana. Earlier that night, he’d began an argument with their father, yelling and pounding on a kitchen cupboard.
When issues like this had occurred earlier than, Genaro, who was 20 years outdated when the police got here, tried to put low in his room and deal with his homework. However that night time, in October 2024, he felt fed up. He walked into the kitchen and advised Steven to not disrespect their father. Steven received angrier and knocked over the household’s TV, which shattered on the ground. Genaro’s mood snapped, and he punched Steven within the face.
Their mom, Gloria, who barely involves Steven’s shoulder, stepped between her sons and advised Genaro to do what docs and social staff had all the time instructed if Steven was in a disaster: Name 911 and ask for an ambulance to take him to the hospital. (Gloria requested to be recognized by her first title to guard the household’s privateness. Genaro and Steven are center names.)
By the point Genaro led the police into the residence, Steven was sitting on the couch, sobbing like a baby. His mother and father assumed that quickly, somebody would lead him downstairs to an ambulance.
However that’s not what occurred. As an alternative, a police supervisor from the 109th Precinct confirmed up and began asking questions — not about whether or not Steven was okay, however who had achieved what to whom; who had damaged what. “He had like a really bad attitude. Everything just got escalated,” Genaro stated.
Steven and his household show symbols of religion of their Flushing residence, July 6, 2026. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/The Metropolis Reporter
The supervisor advised his officers to place Genaro and Steven in handcuffs. They had been each underneath arrest — Genaro for assault; Steven due to the damaged TV. Genaro remembers the officer nearest him asking if they might do the handcuffing exterior, the place Gloria wouldn’t have to look at. The supervisor stated no. Gloria began to scream and bang on the desk, “like her heart was breaking,” Genaro stated.
Gloria, who doesn’t communicate fluent English, remembers pleading with a Spanish-speaking officer. Genaro was such a superb child; he’d by no means been in bother. And Steven, her weak, unpredictable son — what would occur to him in jail?
“How is it possible that this is happening right now?” she requested. “We were asking for help. We were not asking for the police to come.”
Damaged Guarantees
The New York Police Division responds to upwards of 149,000 psychological well being emergency calls every year.
However even when the whole lot goes based on plan, police encounters may cause irreparable hurt. Folks in disaster find yourself in jail. They repeatedly get handcuffed, compelled onto gurneys, strapped down and injected with sedatives towards their will.
Many describe it as like being kidnapped: Their dignity is snatched away, their autonomy erased. They really feel degraded. They’re terrified that it’ll occur once more.
NYPD officers strategy the Queens dwelling of Jabez Chakraborty after his sister referred to as 911, Jan. 26, 2026. Credit score: By way of NYPD physique digital camera footage
It’s exhausting to search out an skilled who argues that sending cops or hauling individuals to ERs is an efficient manner to answer most psychological well being emergencies. Police usually are not educated as psychological well being suppliers; hospital psychiatric items are normally full and admissions standards are slim. As soon as individuals in disaster get to the hospital, they’re almost all the time despatched away with a referral to an outpatient clinic — which will even seemingly be full, with a waitlist. Researchers persistently discover that sending psychological well being groups to answer emergencies is safer, cheaper and more practical than sending police.
For years, officers throughout town and state have promised to construct higher, extra humane methods to answer individuals in disaster.
For years, nevertheless, these guarantees have been damaged.
Gov. Kathy Hochul stated in 2022 she would fund intensive, street-based applications to work with individuals at highest danger of touchdown in hospitals or jails. These applications have waitlists of lots of.
A succession of New York Metropolis mayors promised to deploy cellular disaster groups to deescalate emergencies. The groups are so underfunded and understaffed that households generally wait days for them to point out up.
In 2021, town launched B-HEARD, a pilot program that sends psychological well being staff and EMTs, as a substitute of police, to answer 911 calls. Every mayor since has promised to increase this system throughout town. And but, 5 years after its launch, B-HEARD groups reply to fewer than 7% of citywide psychological well being emergency calls made to 911.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani broadcasts at Metropolis Corridor Renita Francois will lead the newly shaped Mayoral Workplace of Group Security, March 19, 2026. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The present mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has made even greater guarantees than his predecessors, campaigning on a plan to triple the dimensions of the cellular disaster program, develop B-HEARD so large that many neighborhoods have a number of groups, and create a brand new, $1.1 billion metropolis company to supervise an “unprecedented City investment in mental health services.”
Six months into the Mamdani administration, nevertheless, these reforms are nowhere to be seen. After police shot 22-year-old Jabez Chakraborty, who was holding a knife throughout a psychological well being disaster in January, Mamdani took the comparatively small step of opening a brand new Workplace of Group Security, with a price range of solely $260 million, to supervise not solely B-HEARD however violence prevention, home violence and different applications. Town price range, adopted June 30, consists of no new cash for B-HEARD, based on Sam Raskin, a Mamdani spokesperson.
‘We’re Alone’
After Steven and Genaro had been arrested, police locked them in holding cells at their native precinct. Steven’s abdomen damage so badly from nervousness that he was transferred to Queens Hospital Heart, the place he spent the night time shackled to a mattress with a police officer watching him. Hospital workers prescribed drugs for his abdomen ache however nobody gave him a psychiatric analysis or remedy.
His mother and father, frightened sick, introduced his psychiatric medicine to the precinct, however officers turned them away. By the point he was arraigned and launched, two days after his arrest, Steven was exhausted, afraid and confused.
At dwelling, the concern solely closed in tighter. Rising up, it had appeared to Steven that his horizons had been infinite. He was a soccer participant, tall and good-looking with close-cropped black hair and massive, light eyes. At 19, he was recruited to play for knowledgeable group within the Dominican Republic, the Delfinas del Este. However whereas he was there, his luck broke. His greatest buddy died, and he had knee surgical procedure and was lower from the group.
After he got here dwelling, it was like his life had snapped shut. He felt like a failure, and it appeared like different individuals had been taking a look at him and considering the identical factor. Steven began listening to voices. He couldn’t chill out, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t go exterior. He smoked weed to decelerate his thoughts however it made him irritable and aggressive.
Police arrested Steven and his brother at their Flushing household dwelling in 2024 whereas he was struggling a schizophrenic episode. Photographed, July 6, 2026. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/The Metropolis Reporter
His mother and father, contending with the relentless, stagnant grief of watching their baby disappear inside a stranger, rearranged their lives in order that Steven would by no means be left alone. Gloria stop her job as a house well being attendant so she may go together with him to his psychiatry and remedy appointments.
Steven locked himself in his bed room, “just constantly thinking, ‘Is it really worth the risk, going outside or going to the store?’” he stated.
In the meantime, in the lounge, his household circled round what had turn into an inconceivable query: What would they do subsequent time Steven ended up in disaster?
They knew they’d by no means name 911 once more, however there gave the impression to be nowhere else to show. “We’re searching, searching, searching,” Steven’s father stated, however “we’re alone.”
Which is why Gloria was shocked, a number of weeks after her sons’ arrest, to get a name with an unsolicited provide of assist from an activist named Peggy Herrera.
Unheard
Peggy grew to become an unexpectedly public determine on the earth of psychological well being advocacy in 2019, after she referred to as 911 to ask for an ambulance. Her 21-year-old son, Justin, was having a ferocious panic assault, breaking issues and threatening to kill himself.
In 2021, Justin filed a grievance towards town that, over a number of years, grew into an ongoing class-action lawsuit with the potential to essentially change how New York responds to psychological well being emergencies. Peggy grew to become an activist, working to maintain different individuals with psychological well being issues away from cops and out of jail. “People have an illness or they have trauma and what we do is criminalize them and put them in handcuffs,” she stated. “They deserve to be treated like human beings.”
Not One other Youngster Program Supervisor Peggy Herrera misplaced her son to gun violence, June 29, 2026. Peggy Herrera helped Steven and Genaro get their instances dismissed after they had been arrested when the household referred to as 911 for assist throughout a 2024 psychological well being emergency. Credit score: Alex Krales/The Metropolis Reporter
There was a second when it appeared like metropolis officers — together with a lot of the remainder of the nation — had been listening. In September 2020, amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, outrage erupted in Rochester, New York, over physique digital camera footage of a Black man named Daniel Prude, who was forcibly hooded and pinned to the bottom by police after his household referred to as 911 for assist throughout an episode of psychosis. He asphyxiated and later died.
“I placed a phone call to get my brother help, not to have my brother lynched,” Daniel’s brother Joe Prude advised the press.
As activists referred to as to defund the police, dozens of cities despatched delegates to review a 30-year-old program referred to as CAHOOTS, in Eugene, Oregon, that educated EMTs and disaster staff — most of whom had skilled psychological sickness themselves — to answer emergencies. Till this system misplaced funding in 2025, CAHOOTS groups dealt with about 20% of Eugene’s 911 calls, saving town tens of millions of {dollars} a 12 months and not using a critical damage or fatality. After Prude’s loss of life, almost 100 new various disaster response applications cropped up throughout the nation.
New York Metropolis rolled out B-HEARD, beginning with a pilot program in three police precincts in Harlem. The objective, officers stated, was to get individuals into voluntary, community-based companies, keep away from police encounters, and cease the revolving door of the emergency room.
It wasn’t lengthy, nevertheless, earlier than political momentum swung again in the direction of policing and compelled hospitalizations. As shutdowns associated to the COVID-19 pandemic lifted, New Yorkers noticed a spike in crime and a rise of visibly mentally ailing individuals on the road. In 2022, a 40-year-old girl named Michelle Go was pushed to her loss of life in entrance of a subway prepare by a person with a protracted historical past of psychiatric hospitalizations.
Then-Mayor Eric Adams instructed police to take extra individuals to ERs towards their will. Gov. Hochul adopted go well with, making it simpler for hospitals to forcibly commit sufferers to psychiatric wards.
A 911 audio transcription reveals Jabez Chakraborty’s sister requesting an ambulance to their Queens dwelling throughout a psychological well being disaster. Credit score: By way of NYPD
In the meantime the enlargement of B-HEARD stalled out. This system at present operates in fewer than 40% of town’s police precincts, responding throughout restricted hours to a remarkably slim vary of 911 calls. Even when a B-HEARD group had been obtainable in Steven’s neighborhood, he would seemingly have been discovered ineligible. Like most cities with related applications, B-HEARD screens out incidents involving weapons or violence, based on the Mayor’s Workplace of Group Psychological Well being. In follow, nevertheless, dispatchers depend on an unusually broad definition of violence — together with yelling or property harm.
If an individual is “banging on a car or they’re destroying items in the house, that would trigger a police response,” Assistant Chief Ebony Washington testified at a 2024 Metropolis Council listening to.
To Peggy and different advocates, the failure to increase and spend money on B-HEARD is a betrayal. “What’s the point if it doesn’t get to the families who need it?” What individuals in disaster want, she stated, is “trained peers: people who’ve been through it and know how to help you.”
So when Peggy heard a few Spanish-speaking mother whose two sons confronted felony prices after a psychological well being emergency, she determined to assist them battle in courtroom.
‘Don’t take it!’
Early on the morning of his first listening to, Steven and his mother and father sat in an underground room of the Queens Legal Court docket. Dozens of defendants surrounded them, ready in a swampy environment of tedium and concern to be referred to as earlier than a decide. Public defenders bustled out and in with stacks of folders, every representing a consumer they’d seemingly by no means met.
When Steven’s lawyer arrived, she referred to as him right into a hallway to clarify what was about to occur: He was dealing with a cost of disorderly conduct, she stated, however the prosecutor was keen to supply him an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal.
ACDs are widespread, partly, as a result of they’re environment friendly for legal professionals and judges. If Steven stayed out of bother for 12 months, the fees can be dropped. ACDs can pose liabilities for defendants, although, since their arrests proceed to point out up in immigration instances. If they’re arrested once more, they stand to face two units of prices.
Steven’s lawyer didn’t clarify that he had the choice to battle the cost towards him.
Queens County Legal Court docket in Kew Gardens. Credit score: Christine Chung/THE CITY
As Steven and his mother and father filed again into the courtroom, Gloria texted Peggy, attempting to grasp what Steven had simply agreed to. Peggy — caught in site visitors on the Jackie Robinson Parkway — despatched vehement replies:
“Don’t take it!”
“You are going to fight these charges!”
“He did nothing wrong!”
As soon as Peggy arrived, the legal professional acknowledged that Steven may ask for a trial as a substitute of accepting the ACD. He was referred to as to the bench, and the decide set a date for one more listening to.
Genaro’s courtroom date was the next day. Peggy coached him forward of time to inform his public defender that he wished a trial — not an ACD or another deal. However he was referred to as to the bench with out even a phrase together with his lawyer.
Prosecutor and defender performed rapid-fire negotiations and, in lower than two minutes, Genaro discovered himself accepting a one-year ACD.
“I didn’t really know what else to do,” he stated afterward.
‘A Pain in the Ass’
With Steven’s subsequent courtroom date developing and the ACD hanging over Genaro’s head, Peggy didn’t must go far to search out them a authorized adviser: Her brother was pleased to assist.
Victor Herrera is small, pointy-featured and argumentative. Within the Eighties, he discovered authorized codes and grievance procedures the way in which some individuals discover faith: inside Attica jail, the place he was infamous for submitting complaints towards guards, he stated. Folks must pay attention if you’re “a pain in the ass.”
After he received out, Victor ended up within the New York Metropolis homeless shelter system, the place the environment appeared as despotic and intentionally humiliating as jail. He began submitting complaints about drug use and lacking property — being a ache within the ass.
In response, Victor stated in a 2016 lawsuit, shelter workers adopted what he characterised as a deliberate follow inside metropolis homeless shelters to silence tough residents: They referred to as 911 to report him as an “emotionally disturbed person.”
Activist Victor Herrera helped Steve and Genaro get their instances dismissed after they had been arrested in 2024 following a 911 psychological well being name. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/The Metropolis Reporter
9 instances between 2014 and 2016, police and EMTs put Victor in handcuffs and strapped him to a gurney. A minimum of as soon as, officers slammed him towards a wall and put him in a chokehold, based on his authorized filings. 5 instances, he was injected with sedatives or antipsychotics towards his will. He tried to inform police and docs that he wasn’t experiencing a psychological well being disaster, he stated, however when somebody in a uniform says you’re loopy, no one else goes to hearken to you. “You’re dismissed, you’re dismissed, you’re dismissed,” Victor stated.
Inside a 12 months, New York Metropolis paid Victor a monetary settlement on behalf of its homeless companies company, public hospitals, the NYPD and the hearth division. Two personal shelter operators quickly adopted. The settlements don’t embody admissions of guilt however Victor retains photocopies of the checks. They’re proof, when he wants it, that he received heard.
The Division of Social Companies didn’t reply to requests for remark.
After the lawsuit, Victor grew to become one of many first shoppers of a city-funded Intensive Cellular Therapy program, which helped him get an residence, inspired him to turn into an advocate, and supplied remedy for his melancholy and PTSD. A decade later, he nonetheless has flashbacks to being strapped down and sedated. “It can happen anywhere,” he stated. “I just relive all that.”
When it occurs, he goes dwelling and climbs into mattress together with his cats, Boots and Socks. “I start questioning whether I’m still valid to be living,” he stated. “The most traumatic, for me, was going to a hospital and not being heard.”
What will get him away from bed is the information that individuals are relying on him.
‘We Have to Help Each Other’
By the point Steven had his second courtroom date, in February 2025, the Trump administration had allowed immigration brokers into metropolis courthouses. Steven’s father, who isn’t a citizen, stood throughout the road and waited whereas Victor accompanied Steven to his listening to.
Their greatest hope would possibly lie within the lawsuit that Peggy’s son Justin set in movement 5 years in the past.
The lawsuit now consists of 10 named plaintiffs, although Justin is now not one among them. He was shot and killed in July 2022, at his personal twenty fourth celebration. The grief nonetheless seems like a bodily obliteration, Peggy stated — like part of her physique was ripped off. However the lawsuit, she stated, is a part of Justin’s legacy: one thing he left behind to make the world higher.
In 2024, NYPD officers arrested Steven and his brother Genaro of their household’s Flushing dwelling whereas he was struggling a schizophrenic episode. A brother and sister group of activists helped Steven and Genaro keep away from felony prosecution. Photographed July 6, 2026. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/The Metropolis Reporter
In January, metropolis attorneys filed a letter in courtroom indicating that they’re able to discover a settlement. If that occurs, the phrases may embody an in depth, enforceable plan with a transparent timeline to construct a citywide, non-police response for New Yorkers in disaster, stated Jenny Marashi, a lead legal professional for the plaintiffs.
“Imagine if we could meet people in their most vulnerable moment with compassion instead of force,” Marashi stated.
The blueprints exist for a greater answer, she continued. “What you need is a number you can call, where people can come right away, with the discernment to know what you need — which is almost never an emergency room. Ideally those people are led by peers with their own experience” of what it’s wish to be on the opposite aspect of a psychological well being name.
“Then imagine there are places to go for help, where people actually wanted to be, designed by people who use the services,” she stated. “Think about the people that you know. How many of them have had at least some moment where they just couldn’t handle this freaking super hard life?”
If we think about we’re making a system for all of us, it might be a “thread we can follow” — not simply to handle emergencies, however towards a actuality the place New Yorkers deal with each other higher in essentially the most scary, weak moments of their lives.
“We could actually have a more healing and safe world,” Marashi stated. “Let’s dream big.”
Reporting for this story was supported by the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism.
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