Eric Adams New York Mental Health Plan subjected 42 psychological exams against their will in the first month

At least 42 mentally disturbed people were taken for psychiatric evaluations against their will during the first month of Mayor Eric Adams’ public safety program, city officials said Monday.

Forced transportation was carried out in December by outreach workers assigned to the city’s mobile crisis teams, Jamie Knuckles, acting assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Mental Health, testified during the city council’s oversight hearing.

Although Adams’ order primarily targets the mentally ill homeless who cannot take care of themselves, it is not clear how many of the detainees were actually homeless.

This is because the officials did not say where the people were when they were taken away.

Knuckles also said that the 24 mobile crisis teams “basically serve people who live, not the homeless or the subways.”

Adams announced in November that police and other city workers would immediately begin hospitalizing people who appear to be suffering from “severe and untreated mental illness.”

The mayor said he was responding to a “moral obligation to help them get the treatment and care they need.”

His “Forced Eviction Directive” was challenged in court by a group of activists, including the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, who argued that it would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and the city’s Human Rights Act.

But Manhattan federal judge Paul Crotty last week denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary ban on the Adams program, CNN reported.

During a council hearing on Monday, NYPD training chief Juanita Holmes said more than 87% of the department’s patrol officers are trained to identify mentally ill people who pose a “danger to themselves or others” or are “incapable of self-care.” “.

The trained include 89% of police officers assigned to the NYPD Transportation Bureau, which oversees the city’s vast subway system, she said.

Holmes said the training is “taken by roll call” and includes a 25-minute lecture and video presentation that “ensures compliance.”