The Police and the EDPs

By ELAINE RIVERA/NEW YORK

In police vernacular, Gidone Busch was an "EDP"--an emotionally disturbed person. His medical records show that he believed he was directed by God to save drug addicts and exotic dancers, that his friends were prophets and that he was the messiah. When the police were called in last week, he was menacing children in a predominantly Hasidic Jewish section of Brooklyn, and he attacked the cops with a claw hammer. The police shot him to death with 12 bullets. Should they have just maimed Busch to subdue him? New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said, "When [police] make a decision to shoot, they shoot to kill."

Giuliani took immediate political heat for the response and his predictably gruff defense of the N.Y.P.D. But the Busch shooting reflects a chronic problem, one that affects communities throughout the country. Increasingly, police action appears to be the only action that can be taken with EDPs. "Law-enforcement officers are serving as front-line mental-health workers," says Mary Zdanowicz, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, based in Virginia. "But by the time the police intercede, it's usually too late."

The potential case load is overwhelming, with 3.5 million Americans suffering from severe forms of mental illness, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. In 1998, New York City police handled 60,000 calls to 911 regarding EDPs. The city treats approximately 344,000 people with mental illness or substance-abuse problems, according to the city's mental-health agency. Of those, 40,000 have serious, persistent mental-health problems. In Memphis, Tenn., police with mental-health training, as part of a crisis-intervention team, are sent to any scene involving an unstable individual. In Los Angeles, police specifically trained to deal with the mentally ill respond to reports of EDPs in some cases. In New York, police get 16 hrs. of training at the academy in dealing with EDPs. Police officials say the officers involved in the Busch shooting followed all guidelines.

The police officer has become a mental-health adjunct ever since laws passed in the 1960s required mental wards to release anyone who did not want to stay, unless he or she could be proved dangerous. Massive deinstitutionalization occurred. Since 1969, 93% of psychiatric beds have been emptied across the country, and many of the mentally ill end up in the prison system or fending for themselves. Any other way leads to a legal morass. Zdanowicz says, "You can't force someone into an institution unless a whole bunch of criteria are met." The situation is so dire that if family or friends report that an EDP is becoming violent, most mental-health workers will say, "Call the police."

In New York City, councilman Noach Dear, who represents the district where the shooting occurred, says the issue is not new to him. Across from his office, a mentally ill woman living in a small apartment almost daily flings feces out her window. "The police say they can't do anything about it," Dear says. "The mental-health department says it can't do anything. People look at me and say, 'Why do we need you, if you can't do anything about this?' It's very frustrating."

--By Elaine Rivera/New York