As he watched EMTs forcibly load a disheveled, ranting man into an ambulance bound for Bellevue Hospital, clinician Ameed Ademolu – a different type of soldier in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s fight against subway crime – took notes.
While the National Guard is tasked with checking bags and creating a sense of security, Ademolu has the authority to invoke a “958.” That’s the code for someone to be taken to the hospital for a mental health evaluation against their will. Ademolu invoked that authority on Wednesday after determining the man at Fulton Transit Center was in the midst of a psychotic breakdown.
Hochul said unsettling confrontations like the one Gothamist observed while accompanying Ademolu and three MTA police officers on Wednesday need to occur more often. Ademolu and the cops make up one of only two SCOUT teams – short for subway co-response outreach – that seek out the most severely mentally ill homeless people in the system. The governor announced last week that she’ll spend $20 million to expand the initiative to 10 teams.
According to Hochul, the crews of cops and clinicians are key to maintaining order on the subway, where three murders have occurred this year, along with a shooting aboard an A train in Downtown Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon. Since the program launched roughly three months ago, SCOUT teams have sent 15 people to the hospital involuntarily for a psychiatric assessment. The MTA reports that most of these people have subsequently been admitted to psychiatric facilities. The teams have also sent 15 people to the hospital voluntarily and placed 45 people in shelters.
But the episode at Fulton Center – in which cops wrapped the man in a spit hood – highlighted the amount of resources required to forcibly get just one person evaluated. The MTA estimates there are 500 to 700 homeless people in need of mental health treatment in the transit system on a given day.
“We don’t have any uniform strategy to deal with any clients,”…
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