Mental health crisis calls
Yes, it can be a claim, and often two. Force used on a person in a mental health crisis is judged under the same Fourth Amendment test as any other force, on the totality of the circumstances, which includes what the officers were told about the person before they arrived. Separately, the Americans with Disabilities Act forbids a public entity from discriminating against a person with a disability, and two federal appeals courts have said it applies to arrests. This page goes through both claims, the defenses, what other families have recovered, and the clocks.
Force used on a person in crisis is a claim when it was objectively unreasonable for the situation the officers faced. The test is the one in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989): the severity of the crime, whether the person posed an immediate threat to others, and whether the person was resisting arrest or fleeing. On a crisis call the first factor is usually absent. Often no crime has been committed at all, and the person at risk is the one the family called about.
It is not a claim merely because the outcome was terrible. Officers facing a real and immediate threat may use force, and the courts give them room. These cases are decided on what the officers were told, how much time they had, and what they did with it.
How it happens
- A call for help answered as a crime. A parent or a roommate calls 911 and says the person is off medication, frightened or talking about self-harm. Armed patrol officers arrive first and treat the scene as a threat to be controlled.
- Commands to someone who cannot follow them. Several officers shout different orders at a person who is confused, hearing voices or does not understand. Failure to obey within seconds is treated as defiance.
- Force for noncompliance. A Taser, a takedown or a strike is used on a person who has threatened no one, because he would not come out, sit down or show his hands.
- The forced entry. The person is alone behind a closed door, a danger to no one else. Officers break in instead of waiting, and the confrontation that follows is the one they created.
- The shooting at a distance. A person holding a kitchen knife or a tool, many feet away and approaching no one, is shot within moments of the officers' arrival.
- Restraint that stops breathing. An agitated person is held face down by several officers, handcuffed, with weight on the back, until he stops moving.
The claim
Excessive force. The Fourth Amendment claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 runs against the officers. Since Barnes v. Felix, No. 23-1239, 605 U.S. ___ (2025), reasonableness is judged on the totality of the circumstances with no temporal cutoff. On a crisis call that brings in the dispatch information, the family's warnings at the door, and the choices the officers made on the way to the final moment. Deadly force is subject to Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985). Prone restraint is not automatically reasonable because a person struggles; the inquiry is fact-specific (Lombardo v. City of St. Louis, 594 U.S. 464 (2021) (per curiam)). The Tasers and restraints page covers the tools.
The entry. Officers may enter a home without a warrant to give emergency aid on an objectively reasonable basis (Case v. Montana, No. 24-624 (2026)), but there is no freestanding "community caretaking" exception for homes (Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194 (2021)). A lawful entry does not make the force that follows lawful. Each is judged separately.
Disability discrimination. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act provides that no qualified individual with a disability may be excluded from a public entity's services, programs or activities, or be subjected to discrimination by one (42 U.S.C. § 12132). Title II covers state prisons (Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206 (1998)). Whether and how it covers an arrest depends on the circuit:
| Court | States | What it has said |
|---|---|---|
| Supreme Court | All | Took the question and dismissed it without deciding; the officers received qualified immunity on the Fourth Amendment claim (City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan, 575 U.S. 600 (2015)) |
| Eleventh Circuit | Florida | Title II applies to arrests; exigency bears on whether an accommodation is reasonable (Bircoll v. Miami-Dade County, 480 F.3d 1072 (11th Cir. 2007)) |
| Third Circuit | New Jersey, Pennsylvania | The ADA generally applies to arrests (Haberle v. Troxell, 885 F.3d 170 (3d Cir. 2018)) |
| Second Circuit | New York | Not published here. We have not verified a published holding on the ADA in arrests |
The ADA claim runs against the public entity, and it asks a different question from the force claim: whether the department failed to accommodate a known disability when it safely could have, by waiting, by sending someone trained, by talking. The disability discrimination page covers it in full.
In a jail. A person in crisis who has already been arrested is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Force is judged for objective unreasonableness (Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015)), and in the Second Circuit a detainee's medical and mental health care claim uses an objective standard as well: what the official knew or should have known (Darnell v. Pineiro, 849 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 2017)). See suicide and self-harm in custody.
New York City's B-HEARD teams
B-HEARD, launched in June 2021, sends emergency medical technicians and a mental health clinician to answer 911 mental health calls. The Mayor's Office reports nearly 35,000 calls answered through June 2025, and on November 14, 2025 announced a move to full operation by NYC Health + Hospitals in spring 2026. A plaintiff suing the City can point to the program as the City's own statement of what a response to these calls can look like.
What they will argue
He was armed, or we believed he was. This is the defense in almost every crisis shooting. The reply is distance, time and the absence of anyone else in danger, shown by body-worn camera footage and the physical evidence.
Qualified immunity. In Sheehan the officers who re-entered the room of an armed, mentally ill woman received qualified immunity. Officers are shielded unless clearly established law put the question beyond debate (Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982)), and courts may decide that without reaching the merits (Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009)). The defense is weakest where the person was unarmed and not resisting when the force was used: see Jones v. Treubig, 963 F.3d 214 (2d Cir. 2020), on a second Taser cycle. For NYPD officers, New York City law removes the defense for its own excessive force claim (N.Y.C. Admin. Code §§ 8-802, 8-804). See qualified immunity.
There was no time to accommodate anything. Under Bircoll exigency bears on what accommodation was reasonable, so the department will describe every second as an emergency. The record of how long officers were actually on scene before force was used usually tells a different story or confirms theirs.
The city trained its officers. A municipality is liable under Section 1983 only for its own policy or custom (Monell v. Dep't of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978)). A failure to train is actionable only where it amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of people the police come into contact with (City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378 (1989)), and a pattern of similar violations is ordinarily required (Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011)). The plaintiff's argument is that crisis calls are a recurring, predictable part of police work, and that a department which sends untrained officers to them has made a choice.
The involuntary commitment was lawful. If the person was taken to a hospital, the defense will say the seizure was justified. That goes to the seizure, not to the force used to carry it out. The standards for an emergency mental health hold in each state are not in this site's verified ledger and are not stated here.
What people have recovered
Family of Walter Wallace Jr.
He was shot by police during a mental health crisis in 2020.
Source: WHYY. A public record of someone else's case, not a result of this firm and not a prediction.
Family of Scott Whitley III
A jail detainee with schizophrenia was Tasered 27 times. His death was ruled a homicide. The county admitted no liability.
Source: Prison Legal News. A public record of someone else's case, not a result of this firm and not a prediction.
These are other people's cases, and the distance between the two figures is a fair picture of how much depends on the state, the payer and the record. What a case is worth depends on the injury, the evidence and the defenses. No verified public figure for a crisis-call case in New York or New Jersey is published here. See what a case is worth and the public settlements page.
The clock
The table gives the Section 1983 period and the state-law notice rules. The limitation period for an ADA claim is not in this site's verified ledger and is not stated here; treat the shortest date in the table as the working deadline until a lawyer tells you otherwise.
| State | Federal claim, Section 1983 | State-law claim: notice | State-law claim: suit |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | Three years (N.Y. CPLR 214(5); Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235 (1989)). The NYPD city-law claim is also three years (N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-806) | Notice of claim within 90 days to a city or county; in a death case, 90 days from the appointment of the estate's representative (N.Y. Gen. Mun. Law § 50-e(1)(a)) | One year and 90 days; wrongful death within two years of the death (§ 50-i(1)) |
| New Jersey | Two years (N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2), the same for the Civil Rights Act claim, which needs no tort notice (Owens v. Feigin, 194 N.J. 607 (2008)) | Tort Claims Act notice within 90 days (N.J.S.A. 59:8-8) | No suit until six months after the notice; barred after two years (N.J.S.A. 59:8-8) |
| Florida | Four years (Fla. Stat. § 95.11(3)) | Written claim to the agency within three years, two years for wrongful death (Fla. Stat. § 768.28(6)) | The agency has six months to act; suit within four years (§ 768.28(6), (14)) |
| Pennsylvania | Two years (42 Pa.C.S. § 5524; Kach v. Hose, 589 F.3d 626 (3d Cir. 2009)) | Written notice to the government unit within six months (42 Pa.C.S. § 5522(a)) | Two years for personal injury or death (42 Pa.C.S. § 5524) |
No state notice rule applies to the federal Section 1983 claim (Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131 (1988)). The New York, New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania pages go through each rule.
Crisis calls often end with a charge such as resisting arrest or assault on an officer. If one is still open, the person charged should talk to their defense lawyer before describing the incident to anyone, including us. See the criminal case and the civil case.
Disability discrimination
The ADA claim against the department: what accommodation means on the street and in a jail.
Disability discrimination →Police shootings
The deadly force rules, and who brings the claim when the person did not survive.
Police shootings →Suicide and self-harm in custody
When the crisis continued in a cell and nobody was watching.
Suicide in custody →Common questions
We called 911 for help, not to have him arrested. Does that matter legally?
It matters to the facts. Force is judged on the totality of the circumstances, and after Barnes v. Felix (2025) there is no cutoff in time, so what the caller told the dispatcher and what the officers knew on arrival are part of the analysis. A person who has committed no crime and is a danger mainly to himself presents a different picture under Graham v. Connor than a fleeing felony suspect.
Does the Americans with Disabilities Act apply to police?
The Eleventh Circuit (Florida) held in Bircoll v. Miami-Dade County that Title II applies to arrests, with the emergency bearing on what accommodation is reasonable. The Third Circuit (New Jersey and Pennsylvania) said in Haberle v. Troxell that the ADA generally applies to arrests. The Supreme Court took up the question in Sheehan in 2015 and dismissed it without deciding. We have not verified a published Second Circuit holding for New York, so this page does not state one.
He had a knife. Is there still a claim?
Possibly. A weapon weighs heavily for the officers, and in Sheehan the officers who re-entered the room of an armed, mentally ill woman received qualified immunity. The questions are distance, time, whether anyone else was in danger, and whether the officers created the confrontation when they could have waited. Those are questions of evidence.
How long do we have?
For the federal claim: three years in New York, two in New Jersey, four in Florida, two in Pennsylvania. State-law claims need notice within 90 days in New York and New Jersey and six months in Pennsylvania. If the person died, the estate's representative brings the claim, and some clocks run from the death or the appointment.
Tell us what happened.
One conversation with an attorney, in your language. We tell you which claims the facts support, which deadline runs first for the agency involved, what evidence to preserve this week, and whether a pending criminal case changes the timing. If it is not a case we can take, we say so and tell you where to go.
(718) 484-7510If a criminal charge is still open, talk to your defense lawyer before you describe the arrest to anyone, including us. English, Russian and Spanish in-house; an interpreter for any other language. Contingency fee, confirmed in writing before we begin.