NEW YORK - Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new program that will remove the NYPD from responding to emergency calls for people dealing with mental health crises, and instead will establish emergency responder teams that include health professionals and crisis workers.

The pilot program will launch in February 2021 in two high-need neighborhoods that have yet to be determined.

“We have to learn from this crisis,” said de Blasio at his daily press briefing. “It pointed out such horrible disparities that we have to address, but it also brought issues to the fore in a new way, and nowhere is that more true than at the top with mental health.”

The initiative will be a first for the city, which currently responds to all mental health 911 calls by sending NYPD officers and FDNY Emergency Medical Services EMTs, regardless of whether a crime has been involved or whether there is an imminent threat of violence.

“This is the first time in our history that health professionals will be the default responders to mental health emergencies, an approach that is more compassionate and effective for better long term outcomes,” said First Lady Chirlaine McCray, who is behind the program’s launch.

Last year, there were 170,000 mental health calls made to 911, according to McCray. The majority of those calls, or approximately one call every three minutes, were made by people needing help and where there was no indication of violence, she said.

“There is a myth out there that people who suffer from a mental illness are violent and that is one of the things that we work very hard to dispel with the work we’ve been doing around mental health,” McCray said.

If a call is made and it’s determined that there is a risk of violence or that a weapon is present, an NYPD officer will be sent along with the health professional and EMS.

A similar program was introduced in 2019, but was put on pause, according to Susan Herman, director of ThriveNYC. In the new initiative, NYPD officers will be excluded from 911 responses if the situation has been deemed non-violent. 

“The co-response teams that a lot of people are familiar with now—police officers and clinicians typically act in pro-active ways to either prevent a crisis from occurring in the first place because someone has signaled they are worried about somebody's violent behavior or help stabilize people after a crisis,” Herman explained. “We had planned a pilot where these co-response teams of officers and clinicians would respond in 911 calls… We’re holding off on that to see if an even more health-centered approach to these kinds of mental health emergencies would be successful in New York as it has been elsewhere.” 

NYPD officers and FDNY Emergency Medical Services EMTs will continue to provide coordinated responses to mental health emergencies in all other precincts outside of the two included in the pilot program.   

“We have to get it right from the beginning so it can become something much bigger for the city of New York and for the people that need our help,” said de Blasio.