Bread for the City, a D.C. nonprofit that provides food, medical, and social services to low-income residents, has filed a lawsuit against the city for sending armed D.C. police officers as “default” first responders to the scene of mental health crises.

Filed with the D.C. American Civil Liberties Union and the law firm Sheppard Mullin, the suit argues that D.C.’s current approach to emergency response services violates the Americans with Disabilities Act by denying people with mental health disabilities effective and equal access to emergency care — care that is otherwise provided when somebody calls 911 for a medical emergency. Instead of being met by trained mental health clinicians, the suit argues, most often individuals in crisis are met by armed police, putting them in further physical danger and exacerbating their mental health emergency.

“Someone who calls 911 for a physical health emergency gets trained medical providers who can treat and stabilize them. But someone who calls 911 for a mental health emergency gets a police officer with handcuffs and a gun,” Susan Mizner, director of the ACLU’s Disability Rights Program, said in a press release announcing the suit on Thursday.

Through the Department of Behavioral Health, the city operates community response teams (CRTs), a service staffed by mental health clinicians and peer support specialists meant to respond to mental health emergencies. Cities, counties, and higher education institutions across the country have launched similar mental health crisis response programs in recent years, in an attempt to decrease a community’s reliance on police intervention, and divorce mental health care from the criminal justice system. But D.C.’s program, the suit says, has failed to sufficiently invest, train, and coordinate staff on these teams; less than 1% of 911 calls placed in D.C. for a mental health emergency end up getting a response from a mental health professional. While the city has more than 1500 EMTs, only 44 CRTs have been hired, according to the suit. And even when a CRT member does arrive at the scene, response times range from one to three hours or more, while EMTs arrive within minutes. As a result, police are often the first responders.

“If I had a heart attack, I would want someone to call a trained medic, not a police officer. In the same way, if I had a mental health crisis, I would want a mental health provider to provide appropriate care. But that’s not what happens with mental health emergencies in the District of Columbia,” Michael Perloff, a staff attorney at D.C. ACLU, said in a statement. “Long wait times, a lack of mental health providers, and a police-first response puts people with mental health disabilities in the District at unacceptable risk.”

A spokesperson for Mayor Bowser did not immediately return DCist/WAMU’s request for comment on the lawsuit. Regionally, other jurisdictions have seen some success in their attempts to remove police from mental health care. In Alexandria, a program launched in September 2021 that pairs a police officer with a licensed mental health worker for mental-health-related calls showed to successfully divert 71% of calls away from an arrest and toward a different service. Fairfax County has implemented a similar co-response system; according to a review of the program published last week, as of May 2023, co-response teams have diverted roughly 33% of calls away from arrest or hospitalization. However, currently, only three teams operate in the community seven days a week from noon to midnight, and one team operates three days a week from 2 to 11 p.m. Last summer, Aaron Lynch, a 26-year-old McLean resident, was killed by police while they responded to a mental health call. The crisis co-responder on duty, who had arrived earlier that day to support Lynch, had left to clock out of his shift when officers located Lynch and shot him.

The lengthy suit details numerous instances in recent years in which a police response to a mental crisis ultimately resulted in excessive use of force, unwarranted legal action, or otherwise caused further emotional and physical harm to the individual at the center of a crisis call. In one example, presented by Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George during a Department of Behavioral Health oversight hearing last year, a community member called for help from CRT for a loved one experiencing a mental health crisis. According to the suit, both CRT and MPD officers arrived at the scene; MPD officers took over control of the response operation, barricaded the individual in their home, and eventually ended up shooting and killing the person.

In another incident cited, in 2019, American University administrators had asked the campus police to transport an undergraduate student, Gianna Wheeler, to a mental health facility, after receiving reports from a student and a professor about her behavior. AU Police and D.C. police arrived at her apartment, where they remained for several hours despite EMTs having already assessed Wheeler as safe and stable. Police ultimately tackled and handcuffed Wheeler, wrapped her in a blanket, and forcibly removed her from her apartment. (Wheeler went on to sue the university, AUPD, and MPD; the case was ultimately settled.) Lastly, in 2019, D.C. resident Charnal Chaney had been assaulted by her boyfriend — choked until she lost consciousness. Neighbors called the police, and by the time she regained consciousness, officers were in the room questioning her, her abuser still present. She repeatedly stated she didn’t want to answer questions and just wanted her abuser to leave, according to the suit, eventually becoming so tired she said she would “jump out of the window” if officers didn’t remove her abuser. Officers then carried Chaney by her hands and feet to their car and took her to an emergency room for an involuntary psychiatric evaluation.

“The District has adopted a series of policies and made a series of funding decisions that ensure that MPD officers, rather than mental health professionals, serve as the default first responders to mental health emergencies in D.C.,” reads the suit.

When a 911 call is placed to the city’s Office of Unified Communications, OUC staff can route the call to MPD, to D.C. Fire and EMS, or through Access Helpline, which would then authorize CRTs to respond to the scene. According to the suit, in 2022 OUC sent MPD to 84% of 911 calls involving a mental health emergency. Fewer than one percent of calls were routed to the Access Helpline. The abysmal numbers are in part the result of agency underfunding and staffing, according to the suit. Per a senior OUC official, often when a call is transferred to the Access Helpline, no one answers, the suit says. The city also lacks updated tracking technology, meaning that when CRT members are dispatched to a scene, OUC has no way to see their location in real-time.

“The most effective response to a mental health crisis is to provide empathy, support, and a calm, safe environment. Although the District employs some mental health providers to respond to crises, it has not invested the resources needed or provided them the support necessary to be effective and widely deployed,” said Tracy Knight, the director of social services at Bread for the City.

Numerous studies — both nationwide and in D.C. — have concluded that police should not be the first responders in mental health emergencies. They’ve also debunked the stigma that people with mental health disabilities are violent and thus require a police response. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) concluded in its 2020 guidelines for behavioral health crisis care that police response is “unacceptable and unsafe” in mental health emergencies, adding that the presence of officers on a scene can increase anxiety and fear for individuals already in an emergency. The ACLU lawsuit also references a D.C. Department of Behavioral Health report, which reviewed documents from MPD’s crisis intervention officer program. The training for the program requires a 40-hour training course — MPD’s most advanced training on mental health emergencies. According to the report, between fiscal years 2019 and 2022, 92% of mental health calls answered by crisis intervention officers didn’t involve a weapon, and less than 1% of calls involved a gun. Replacing police with mental health counselors in crisis situations was also among the dozens of recommendations presented to D.C. lawmakers by the D.C. Police Reform Commission, a body formed by the D.C. Council in the summer of 2020.

The suit follows two recent investigations by the U.S. Justice Department into the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments, respectively, which concluded both departments violated the ADA by sending officers to mental health emergency calls, and builds off long-standing demands from local activists. The D.C. Crisis Response Coalition, a group made up of community organizations focused on racial justice, abolition, and harm reduction, including Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, HIPS, and the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, launched its policy platform earlier this spring. They’re advocating for a comprehensive, empathetic, and compassionate crisis response system in the city that excludes police, and instead deploys mental health and conflict resolution specialists.

In lieu of such a system, Bread for the City argues that its staff is often pulled away from certain services in order to protect their clients experiencing mental health crises. The nonprofit, which predominantly serves residents of color in wards 7 and 8, avoids calling 911 to the “greatest extent possible,” and cannot expect an expedient result from a CRT member. As a result, Bread for the City has developed a system where its staff “effectively serve as first responders” for emergencies at its sites in Northwest and Southeast D.C. According to the lawsuit, the staff handles, on average, three mental health emergencies a month. The organization has dedicated ten team members as designated crisis responders, but this comes on top of their other duties.

“The District’s reliance on MPD officers as its primary first responders for mental health emergencies has frustrated Bread’s mission by causing it to divert substantial resources to handling crises at its facilities, impeding its ability to advance its core mission,” the lawsuit states.  As relief, the lawsuit requests that the city implement and operate an emergency response system for mental health crises that ensures mental health providers are the default responders.