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���������� Note: Daniel Prude should have been able to celebrate another birthday last Wednesday, but he and his family were deprived of that opportunity when Rochester Police killed Daniel while he was going through a mental health crisis and needed help. Mental Health and Substance Use crises must receive a public health response, instead of police, to adequately meet the needs of those experiencing these emergencies. Daniel would likely be alive if he had received the type of non-police response Daniel’s Law calls for. The state needs to move quickly to implement effective, peer led, non-police response units to prevent more harm and provide needed support to the thousands who experience mental health and substance use emergencies.

Last Saturday, advocates, elected officials, and community members throughout ���������� State gathered for Daniel’s Day to celebrate the memory of Daniel Prude and continue pushing for the passage of Daniel’s Law. The well attended events held in Albany, Brooklyn, and Rochester highlighted the need for mental health first responder teams of peers, EMTs and other mental health experts instead of police. We must continue pushing for the passage and implementation of Daniel’s Law to guarantee no more people are put in harms way when in need of support in ����������. Daniel’s Law must pass this year! Read below to see coverage of the Daniel’s Day events throughout the state.

For Daniel Prude’s Birthday, ����������ers Reimagine Mental Health Responses without Law Enforcement
By Tandy Lau | ���������� Amsterdam News | September 20, 2023

Daniel Prude would turn 45 this week. Instead, his birthday serves as an annual reminder for reforming the response to mental health-related crises. This Saturday, “Daniel’s Day” events throughout the state will renew efforts to replace police with unarmed medical professionals on most mental illness-based emergency calls. 

Back in March 2020, Rochester police gagged and restrained an unclothed Prude in frigid weather due to an emergency call made due to a mental health episode. His head was covered with a “spit hood.” The Black Chicagoan, who was visiting his brother Joe and sister-in-law Valerie, died shortly after from asphyxiation. 

Subsequent legislation was introduced a year by State Senator Samra Brouk and Assemblymember Harry Bronson aiming to readdress mental health crises as public health issues rather than public safety concerns. Such a move involves removing armed police officers from those emergency calls in favor of “consent-based care.” With Prude’s family’s permission, the bill was nicknamed “Daniel’s Law.” 

Licensed professionals would be dispatched to deescalate mental health-related emergency calls and law enforcement would be limited to direct public safety risks. Such a law intends to minimize “non-consensual” enforcement like transporting someone experiencing a mental health crisis—which risks escalating the situation. 

A Daniel’s Law Coalition sprung from advocating for such reforms by activists like Stanley Martin, who now serves on the Rochester city council.

“This grassroots fight led by people who were directly impacted is now being discussed in the ���������� State Legislature,” said Martin. “It’s not a small feat, so we want to give people hope. Let them know that a righteous struggle is worth having. It’s been three years and a protracted struggle but we want people to know, we’re still here. We’re still fighting and we want people to get involved in that.”

Brouk and Bronson reintroduced “Daniel’s Law” at the start of this year. A 10-person Daniel’s Law task force was established in this year’s state budget and is chaired by NYS Office of Mental Health Commissioner Ann Sullivan.

But despite the namesake, “Daniel’s Day” and “Daniel’s Law” expands past just Prude, whose highly public death shortly preceded the reckoning of the 2020 George Floyd Protests and the outlying unrest that came with related police violence. Black ����������ers like Saheed Vassell and Eudes Pierre are others remembered as police violence victims during a mental health response. Most remembered are nonwhite. 

“I’m very upset that I didn’t know how much this was happening before Eudes,” said Pierre’s cousin Sheina Banatte. “And now, after Eudes, with all this advocacy and activism, it’s still happening. We just need to stop looking to police to handle everything.”

The NYPD fatally shot Pierre in Dec. 2021 which the department deemed “suicide by cop.” But his family—including Banatte—pushed back on the narrative. Her organization, Justice for Eudes Pierre, joined the Daniel’s Law Coalition this past summer. 

Ruth Lowenkron, director of disability justice at ���������� Lawyers for the Public Interest believes Daniel’s Law a crucial first step for a functioning statewide mental health apparatus. 

“It’s only a piece of the puzzle and we need to be improving our mental health services, so that we can limit the number of crises so that we have a place to refer someone once the crisis is deescalated,” said Lowenkron.

“That’s all a critical part of it. But we feel we have to focus on that moment of crisis…if people are literally dying because we’re not getting it right [responding] to that crisis, we have to act quickly.”

This is best seen locally through Rikers Island which many advocates consider the city’s largest mental health facility. Most recently,  reported around 1,200 city jail detainees were diagnosed with serious mental illness in May. To be clear,  points to people with mental illness being more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violent crime. 

While Daniel’s Law remains in the works up in Albany, ���������� City rolled out the B-HEARD pilot program in Harlem back in 2021, which deploys non-police professionals to respond to mental health calls. It’s since expanded to other boroughs, namely in precincts in Black and brown neighborhoods like East ����������, Brownsville, and the South Bronx. 

But Lowenkron remains critical of B-HEARD due to the lack of around-the-clock coverage and the limited areas where non-police responses are made. And the city  in the second half of last year led to B-HEARD responses and that not all mental health-related calls were eligible. She says Daniel’s Law would lay out the criteria to what qualifies for a non-police response more directly. 

Banatte on the other hand addressed the shortcomings but welcomed B-HEARD as an additional resource to mental health response. 

Here in ���������� City, “Daniel’s Day” will be observed this Saturday, Sept. 23 in Crown Heights and hosted by Assemblywoman Monique Chandler-Waterman. The event takes place between 3-7 p.m. and can be found on Montgomery Street between Utica Avenue and East ���������� Avenue. 

Author’s Note: Assemblywoman Monique Chandler-Waterman provided an additional statement following press time:

“In efforts to raise awareness of the ongoing needs around mental health, I have joined the campaign to pass Daniel’s Law, alongside my Rochester colleagues, Assemblymember Bronson and Senator Brouk, leading the charge…join me along, with the AD 58 Mental Health Taskforce on Saturday, September 23rd from 3pm-7pm at Utica Avenue and Montgomery Street in Brooklyn, ���������� to highlight community wellness and mental health awareness in memory of the late Daniel Prude and others impacted.”

Daniel’s Day brings Together Advocates Across ���������� State
By Hayden Wentworth | RochesterFirst | September 23rd, 2023

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Hundreds of community leaders, friends, family and supporters all across ���������� State gathered Saturday for ‘Daniel’s Day,’ in honor and celebration of Daniel Prude.

Prude was experiencing a mental health crisis when  and stopped breathing in March of 2020. He died 7 days later in the hospital.

Prude’s family comes together every year around his birthday to keep advocating for how they feel mental health crises should be handled by first responders.

“Each year, we want to celebrate the life and memory of Daniel Prude by making sure that we raise awareness about what happened to him,” Stanley Martin, the co-founder of Free the People says.

They also keep fighting for the passage of ‘Daniel’s Law,’ which would change the way ���������� responds to mental health emergencies. It’s something Joe Prude, Daniel’s brother, says will make an impact.

“With that in place and if they pass it, we’ll never have to see another tragedy again,” Joe says.

If passed, state officials say Daniel’s Law would change how mental health crisis calls are managed by sending trained experts in the field to be the primary responders.

Samra Brouk, ���������� State Senator for the 55th District says, “Like social workers, like crisis counselors, peer advocates, people who have had experience with mental health crises and substance use.”

Joe Prude says if this was in place when Daniel was going through his own mental health crisis, he would still be here today.

“He’d still be alive,” he says. “That’s for sure. He would still be alive. They would have been able to know the proper training to give him at that moment and particular time.”

While people keep fighting for the passage of the law, Joe says he knows his brother is proud of what’s being done.

“Yeah, he’s smiling down on all of us right now because he knows for a fact that what we’re doing right now is right,” Joe says. “We’re going to continue to do what’s right.”

The law has yet to be passed, but a task force was created earlier this year under the State’s office of mental health.

NYS Mental Health Advocates Rally for Daniel’s Law Passage
By Emma Quinn | CBS 6 News | Sat, September 23rd, 2023

Changing the way ���������� responds to mental health emergencies, that’s the mission behind the Daniels law legislation.

The law is named after Rochester man Daniel Prude who died in March 2020 after Rochester Police put a spit bag around his head when responding to a mental health crisis.

“As you may or may not know, Daniel prude was killed in 2020 while experiencing a mental health crisis,” said Luke Sikinyi, NYS Association of Psych Rehab Services.

The cause of Prude’s death was asphyxiation, which sparked civil unrest in the city of Rochester. The officers involved were not charged.

Daniel’s law would ensure mental health experts respond to crises and minimize the role of law enforcement.

“We want people who have experience in mental health- so mental health clinicians, peers which are people who have lived experience with the mental health system, and EMT’s because we have seen this group of folks can really alleviate the issues that come along with mental health crisis,” said Sikinyi.

While the law has yet to be passed, a task force was created last year to review different methods to implement.

“[It’s} to look at all these different types of models and give recommendations to the state on what the best statewide model of a Daniel’s law crafted program would be,” said Sikinyi.

Cities around the country have implemented similar programs. In Eugene Oregon, the city has implemented the  program which has seen much success.

Wednesday marked Prude’s 45th birthday, activists say keeping his memory alive is crucial.

“The most important reason to lift up Daniel Prude’s name is so that he does not die in vain, so no one else has to go through what he went through,” Taylor added.

Advocates Unite for Daniel’s Day in Albany, Push for Mental Health Response Reform
By Corey James | Spectrum News | September 23, 2023

This weekend in Albany, a statewide movement gained momentum as advocates, lawmakers and mental health professionals came together to commemorate Daniel’s Day. The event was in memory of , who died in the custody of the Rochester police in 2020 during a mental health crisis.

Advocates, organizers and members of the community rallied on Saturday in an effort to bring attention to their cause and advocate for the passage of Daniel’s Law.

Daniel’s Law, currently a proposed bill in ����������, represents a significant shift in public health policy. It proposes the establishment of specialized mental health response units tasked with handling crises, replacing the role of armed police officers. These units would be certified by the state but operated at the local level, emphasizing a community-based approach to crisis response.

“We really want to push for Daniel’s Law to pass,” said ���������� Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (����������) public policy director Luke Sikinyi. “The whole point of the law is so that we can stop having police be the first responders for mental health crises, especially when there’s no danger involved.”

“If people knew that when they called 911, they would not be met with police,” Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) co-director of policy and communications TeAna Taylor said. “But instead with people who are trained to handle mental health services. I think that can lead to an actual decrease in crime and an improvement in community safety.”

Advocates say the creation of the Daniel’s Law Task Force, through legislative action, is a step forward. This task force’s mission is to explore different models and make recommendations for the best statewide program under Daniel’s Law.

Despite its potential benefits, advocates say that Daniel’s Law faces challenges due to sensitivity and misconceptions surrounding the issue. 

“It can be a very sensitive topic,” Sikinyi said. “There’s a lot of fear that if you have people who aren’t police officers responding in these crises, that something bad will happen. And we know that that’s just not true.”

Advocates often point to successful models like the Cahoots program in Oregon as evidence of the potential for reform.

“We’ve seen the Cahoots model out in Eugene, Ore., do this really, really well without having to call police officers,” Sikinyi said. “It’s about de-escalating and having the proper skill sets.”

The fate of Daniel’s Law now rests in the hands of ����������’s lawmakers and policymakers.

Spectrum News 1 reached out to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office for a response, and a spokesperson issued a statement on behalf of the governor: “We will review the legislation if it passes both houses of the legislature.”