A federal judge on Sept. 10 denied an effort by the District of Columbia to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its alleged reliance on sending police officers rather than mental health professionals to respond to many mental health emergencies.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes found in her ruling that the plaintiff in the case—a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit supporting underserved communities called Bread for the City—had plausibly argued they are harmed by the city’s practices.
That legal challenge argued that the District of Columbia was reliant on sending Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers as the default first responders for the vast majority of mental health emergencies.
This approach to emergency response services, the lawsuit argued, discriminated against individuals with mental health disabilities and was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act.
The ADA prohibits state and local government entities from denying “qualified individuals with disabilities” an equal opportunity to benefit from their services and programs, while the Rehabilitation Act bans discrimination against people with disabilities by any program or activity that receives federal financial assistance.
While the lawsuit noted the district employs community response teams (CRTs) comprised of mental health clinicians and certified peer support specialists to address mental health emergencies in the city, it also fails to “provide sufficient funding, training, or coordination to adequately staff and support these teams.”
As a result, less than 1 percent of the 911 calls the district receives that primarily or exclusively involve mental health emergencies get a response from a mental health professional, the lawsuit stated.
“When D.C. residents experience physical health emergencies—such as asthmatic or diabetic crises—calling 911 results in the prompt arrival of paramedics or emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who are specially trained to address the crisis,” the lawsuit said.
“By contrast, when D.C. residents experience mental health emergencies—such as suicidal ideation or post-traumatic stress episodes—calling 911 will routinely bring to the scene armed MPD officers, who are mainly trained to arrest and detain people suspected of crimes, not to handle mental health emergencies,” it continued.
As a result, the District’s policy and practice of sending armed MPD officers to address mental health crises is therefore ineffective, the ACLU and Sheppard Mullin concluded.
District Seeks to Dismiss Lawsuit
In a motion seeking to dismiss the case, the district argued it shares the plaintiff’s goals in seeking to enhance its mental health emergency response system and is already making “great strides towards” doing so.“But Plaintiff’s advocacy for the creation of new services and standards of care presents a policy argument, not a legal claim,” the district said.
The ADA and Rehabilitation Act are also “not vehicles for requiring that a public entity create new services or standards of care for individuals with disabilities,” the lawsuit said
“Today’s decision made clear that communities can’t single out mental health emergencies for worse services than other health emergencies,” Perloff said.
The Epoch Times has contacted the District of Columbia Office of the Attorney General for comment.
