Lee: The man who killed Jordan Neely was not a police officer, but it was a white man taking matters into his own hands and ultimately choking a black man to death, fitting the fear that a black person needing help often gets the opposite. The cause of death has been deemed compression of the neck and ruled a homicide. Neely was allegedly yelling and pacing back and forth on a subway train in Manhattan until a stranger, a former Marine, put Neely in a chokehold on the subway train floor. Lee: And more recently, 30-year-old Jordan Neely, who was killed by a stranger on a subway car in New York City.Īrchival Recording: Neely was also homeless and struggled with mental illness, factors that many believe contributed to why Neely is no longer alive. Lee: And there was Najee Seabrooks killed this March in Paterson, New JerseyĪrchival Recording: Police say they responded to calls of an emotionally disturbed person and when they arrived to the apartment, a man barricaded himself inside, when they thought it was safe to enter police say they encountered a man with a knife. An autopsy provided by the family said he died days later from complications of asphyxia in the setting of a physical restraint. Lee: Like 41-year-old Daniel Prude, who was killed by police in upstate New York in March 2020.Īrchival Recording: The incident seen on police body camera footage obtained and released months later by Prude's family back shows him naked, shouting, and being restrained with handcuffs, his head covered with a hood. His brother had called 9-1-1 asking for mental health professionals concerned Prude was having a breakdown. Many of these stories have made national headlines.Īrchival Recording: Prude was visiting relatives in Rochester. One of the biggest reasons why many black folks don't want to call 9-1-1 is fear that they or a loved one will be hurt or killed by police and with good reason, black people are twice as likely to be killed by cops than white people and according to databases from those who keep track of this stuff, like “The Washington Post,” an estimated 25% of people killed by police were experiencing a mental or emotional crisis. An ABC News-Washington Post poll from earlier this year found that only 12% of black respondents felt that police treat black and white people equally. The seeds of Freedom House were planted years ago, but really took root in the summer of 2020 in the shadow of George Floyd's murder as the country wrestled with the role of policing with a new fervor.Ī Gallup poll conducted in August of 2020 at the height of it all found that only 9% of black Americans had a great deal of confidence in the police. They didn't want to call 9-1-1, and overwhelmingly, we got a really, really good feedback on what we're trying to do. We responded to folks who had family members going through crisis and they didn't know what to do. We responded to folks who just wanted somebody to talk to. So last year we ran a pilot program only two days a week and in the first few months we responded to folks experiencing suicidal ideation.

Now, Rachel is leading the Freedom House Mobile Crisis Unit, a program that responds to mental health needs within a five-mile radius of the historically-black neighborhood of Liberty City, and this week I'm riding with Rachel, in Miami, to see it all in action.Īrchival Recording: And y'all are expanding your services, right, like there's been enough success for now, you're like, you're growing? In the 60s, two dozen black men in Pittsburgh changed emergency medical response in this country born out of a desire to minimize police harm in black neighborhoods. Trymaine Lee: Last week, we met Rachel Gilmer who's work in mental health in Miami is inspired by the original Freedom House in Pittsburgh. And that's very much in the, in the same spirit of what we're trying to do here so it felt just right. Armen told us about this program in Pennsylvania black people coming together to respond to medical needs in the communities before the ambulance service existed. Rachel Gilmer: When we were trying to come up with a name around the mobile crisis and we knew this was a program we wanted to do, Dr. Transcript Into America Don't Send the Police: Freedom House Rides Again

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