{"id":1581097,"date":"2022-07-31T08:33:47","date_gmt":"2022-07-31T12:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1581097"},"modified":"2022-07-31T08:36:17","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T12:36:17","slug":"michael-shellenberger-how-progressive-groups-like-the-aclu-make-new-york-city-more-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/michael-shellenberger-how-progressive-groups-like-the-aclu-make-new-york-city-more-dangerous\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Shellenberger: How Progressive Groups Like the ACLU Make New York City More Dangerous"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmichael-shellenberger-how-progressive-groups-like-the-aclu-make-new-york-city-more-dangerous%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1581097&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>On a recent July afternoon in The Bronx, 19-year-old Franklin Mesa <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/07\/22\/attacker-stabs-nyc-man-to-death-in-front-of-wife-cops-say\/\">went up to<\/a> Nathaniel Rivers, 35, who had just parked his car, and allegedly stabbed him to death in front of his wife.<\/p>\n<p>Mesa\u2019s family members described him as schizophrenic. Police said he was arrested last year for punching somebody, twice, in the face. And a neighbor told The Post that he was often the source of \u201chostile, aggressive\u201d situations, including preventing a woman from getting on the bus.<\/p>\n<p>And yet it appears that nobody did anything to see if Mesa was taking his psychiatric medicine, which his sister said he had been on since he was 15.<\/p>\n<p>Rivers\u2019 horrifying death rekindles a debate over the violent mentally ill in New York. Between 2015 and 2018, 911 calls reporting emotionally disturbed people have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ny1.com\/nyc\/all-boroughs\/politics\/2019\/03\/14\/a-closer-look-at-the-data-showing-a-rise-in-reports-of-mentally-ill-new-yorkers\">jumped by nearly 25%<\/a> in New York City, while the number of homeless people with serious mental illness rose by the same percent.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/franklin-mesa-nathaniel-rivers.jpg\"><\/a><figcaption>Rivers was allegedly stabbed to death by Mesa, who\u2019d recently been arrested for assault and was described by neighbors as the center of \u201caggressive, hostile\u201d situations. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At bottom, the blame for this trend rests with progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society, which have sought to de-fund psychiatry, de-police New York, and de-stigmatize untreated mental illness. They are expert at persuading courts to release mentally ill people in the name of freedom. They convince their clients to push for maximal freedom rather than for the care that\u2019s best for them.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the case of Martial Simon, a 61 year-old mentally ill homeless man, who early this year confessed to pushing 40 year-old Michelle Go onto the subway tracks, killing her instantly. Simon, who the ACLU defended in court, is <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/04\/20\/martial-simon-sent-to-mental-facility-over-michelle-gos-fatal-subway-shove\/\">now at a psychiatric facility<\/a> where he will remain until he\u2019s found mentally fit.<\/p>\n<p>The fact is, he should never have been released.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/nathaniel-rivers-memorial.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/nathaniel-rivers-memorial.jpg\" alt=\"A memorial in The Bronx for Rivers, whose death has led to more calls for the enforcement of Kendra\u2019s Law, which forces potentially violent mentally ill people to receive treatment.\" class=\"wp-image-23245068\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/nathaniel-rivers-memorial.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/nathaniel-rivers-memorial.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/nathaniel-rivers-memorial.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=512 512w\" \/><\/a><figcaption>A memorial in The Bronx for Rivers, whose death has led to more calls for the enforcement of Kendra\u2019s Law, which forces potentially violent mentally ill people to receive treatment. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Tomas E. Gaston<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Simon had already been under the supervision of New York\u2019s correctional authority until last August for two cases of armed robbery in 2017. His sister wanted him permanently hospitalized.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember begging one of the hospitals, \u2018Let him stay,\u2019\u201d she told The Post, \u201cbecause once he\u2019s out, he didn\u2019t want to take medication, and it was the medication that kept him going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A homeless advocate who saw Simon\u2019s medical records reports that Simon even told a psychiatrist in 2017 that it was only a matter of time before he pushed a woman onto the subway tracks.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/simon-martial.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/simon-martial.jpg\" alt=\"The ACLU defended Simon Martial, the mentally ill homeless man who killed Michelle Go when he pushed her onto subway tracks. Martial is currently being held at a psychiatric facility after previously being released.\" class=\"wp-image-23245092\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/simon-martial.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/simon-martial.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/simon-martial.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=512 512w\" \/><\/a><figcaption>The ACLU defended Simon Martial, the mentally ill homeless man who killed Michelle Go when he pushed her onto subway tracks. Martial is currently being held at a psychiatric facility after previously being released.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">J.C. Rice<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cPeople with mental illness who harm other people usually do it because of paranoid delusions in which they fear for their own lives,\u201d Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke told me. \u201cThey become convinced, based on psychotic delusions, that they need to kill to protect. What looks on the outside like pure aggression is often a deeply disturbed attempt to protect.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The seriously mentally ill, who also often suffer from drug addiction and homelessness, are some of the most difficult sick people to treat, which is why even many very caring medical professionals and social workers avoid them.<\/p>\n<p>This is partly because the ACLU and other progressive groups have sought to weaken Kendra\u2019s Law, claiming it is authoritarian and racist, while also seeking to prevent police officers from even responding to 911 calls relating to the mentally ill.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/michelle-go.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"682\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/michelle-go.jpg\" alt=\"Go\u2019s death might have been prevented if Martial had been required to take medication to control his mental illness. The ACLU says such measures deprive people of their civil liberties.\" class=\"wp-image-23245107\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/michelle-go.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=1023 1023w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/michelle-go.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=682 682w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/michelle-go.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=341 341w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/michelle-go.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all 1024w\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Go\u2019s death might have been prevented if Martial had been required to take medication to control his mental illness. The ACLU says such measures deprive people of their civil liberties. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Kendra\u2019s Law, passed by New York legislators in 1999, is named after a writer who was killed after being pushed onto the subway tracks by a mentally ill man who had stopped taking his medications. The law allows courts to order medical treatment of the mentally ill without hospitalization, which is known as \u201cassisted outpatient treatment,\u201d and at a lower standard than the \u201cimminent dangerousness\u201d criteria for in-patient commitment in New York.<\/p>\n<p>Assisted outpatient treatment is aided by injectable antipsychotic medicines, which last a full month. They are tailor-made for delusional schizophrenics who convince themselves that they are not sick and stop taking their daily medicines. Most conservatives and liberals agree Kendra\u2019s Law worked to prevent violence by the mentally ill. It allows for action to be taken before a mentally ill person, like Mesa or Simon, hurts somebody.<\/p>\n<p>And yet there was <a href=\"https:\/\/bronxworks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Improving-Care-Coordination-for-Homeless-Individuals-with-Severe-Mental-Illness-in-NYC-2.8.2022.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">an 8% decline<\/a> in the number of individuals treated under Kendra\u2019s Law between 2017 and 2021.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/kendra-webdale.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"682\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/kendra-webdale.jpg\" alt=\"Kendra\u2019s Law, passed in 1999, was named after Kendra Webdale (above), who was pushed onto subway tracks by a mentally ill man who had stopped taking his medication.\" class=\"wp-image-23245125\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/kendra-webdale.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=1023 1023w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/kendra-webdale.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=682 682w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/kendra-webdale.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all&#038;w=341 341w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/kendra-webdale.jpg?quality=75&#038;strip=all 1024w\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Kendra\u2019s Law, passed in 1999, was named after Kendra Webdale (above), who was pushed onto subway tracks by a mentally ill man who had stopped taking his medication. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In my reporting for my book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/San-Fransicko-Progressives-Ruin-Cities\/dp\/0063093626\/?tag=nypost-20&#038;asc_refurl=https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/07\/30\/how-progressive-groups-like-the-aclu-make-nyc-more-dangerous\/&#038;asc_source=web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\">San Fransicko<\/a>,\u201d an attorney for the ACLU told me that her organization believes the mentally ill are too impaired to be held accountable for breaking the law, but not impaired enough to justify the same kind of treatment we provide to other people suffering mental disabilities, such as dementia.<\/p>\n<p>In short, the ACLU effectively believes that it\u2019s better to accept the deaths of people like Nathaniel Rivers and Michelle Go than to deprive the civil liberties of potentially violent mentally ill people like Franklin Mesa and Martial Simon by mandating they take once-a-month injections. In 2018, just 3,158 patients were under active Kendra\u2019s Law court orders in New York state, even though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/09\/11\/nyregion\/kendras-law-andrew-goldstein-subway-murder.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">around 8,000 could have qualified<\/a>, according to advocacy group Mental Illness Policy Org.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Eric Adams has made fighting crime his signature concern, and recently hired Kendra\u2019s Law author, Brian Stettin, to work for him. They will need to increase psychiatric beds by at last 4,000, in order to meet demand.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/andrew-goldstein.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/andrew-goldstein.jpg\" alt=\"Andrew Goldstein, who&#039;d suffered from schizophrenia for decades, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for Webdale&#039;s death. The ACLU calls Kendra&#039;s Law \" racist and authoritarian \/><\/a><figcaption>Andrew Goldstein, who\u2019d suffered from schizophrenia for decades, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for Kendra Webdale\u2019s death. The ACLU calls Kendra\u2019s Law \u201cracist and authoritarian.\u201d<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">New York Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>There is federal Medicaid funding for this, but New York state must apply for a waiver known as the \u201cIMD Exclusion.\u201d Naturally, ACLU and other progressive groups hotly oppose New York state doing so.<\/p>\n<p>But Mayor Adams need not wait for Governor Kathy Hochul to act. He should order New York police and doctors in New York hospitals to interpret existing laws more broadly, since the law allows recognizing hospital care as \u201cessential to [the] person\u2019s welfare\u201d and \u201cother conduct demonstrating that the person is dangerous to [self].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No doubt that the ACLU will sue him but, as Stettin notes, \u201cIt would be a fight well worth having, and the city would prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Michael Shellenberger is the best-selling author of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/San-Fransicko-Progressives-Ruin-Cities\/dp\/0063093626\/?tag=nypost-20&#038;asc_refurl=https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/07\/30\/how-progressive-groups-like-the-aclu-make-nyc-more-dangerous\/&#038;asc_source=web\">San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities<\/a>.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a recent July afternoon in The Bronx, 19-year-old Franklin Mesa went up to Nathaniel Rivers, 35, who had just parked his car, and allegedly stabbed him to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1581296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1581097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1581097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1581296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1581097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1581097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1581097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}