Citing safety, New York moves mentally ill people out of subway

NEW YORK: Inside a subway station in Lower Manhattan, a group of police officers slowly followed a dishevelled man in a soiled gray sweatshirt who was stammering and thrashing his arms wildly. "Please, leave me alone," he shouted, asking, "What did I do wrong?" Mucus had crusted in his beard. A pair of stained pants hung off his slender frame. "Come on," a officer said as he stumbled forward, disoriented and agitated."We've got to leave the station." The team then handcuffed him and dragged him out of the station.
The police officers were part of a team led by a medical worker whose job is to move - by force, if needed - mentally ill people, who are often homeless, out of New York City's transit system. The intervention teams are part of an expansive effort to make the subway safer after a string of shocking crimes. Part of the plan involves finding solutions to one of the transit system's most frustrating problems: people experiencing mental health issues and homelessness living on trains and in stations.
Officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which operates the subway, said they were doing what was necessary to help troubled people while keeping them away from passengers. In survey after survey, riders have said they would use mass transit more often if they saw fewer people behaving erratically and more cops.
But some advocates for mentally ill people believe the teams use heavy-handed tactics that do more harm than good. In defence, MTA officials said that the agency's officers must sometimes restrain people who are suffering from severe psychiatric distress.
Launched last fall, the programme, called Subway Co-Response Outreach, or SCOUT, has removed at least 113 people from the subway. Most go willingly to shelters, or to hospitals for medical treatment, according to transit officials.
There is no data to suggest that people with mental illness are more likely than others to commit violent crimes. But some New Yorkers were put on edge by a series of high-profile attacks carried out by mentally ill homeless people in recent months.