WORCESTER – Three mental health organizations filed a civil lawsuit against the City of Worcester on Monday, March 16, alleging the city’s 911 emergency response program discriminates against children, youth, and adults with mental health disabilities.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) of Central Massachusetts, NAMI-Massachusetts, and the Parent-Professional Advocacy League filed a discrimination lawsuit against the city, alleging its 911 program violates Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Section 504 requires “that People with Disabilities Have Equal Access to, and an Equal Opportunity to Benefit From, the Services, Programs, and Activities of a Public Entity’s 911 Program, Including by Making Reasonable Modifications to a Public Entity’s 911 Program,” according to the complaint.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that calling 911 in Worcester in response to a physical health emergency, like a heart attack, brings qualified healthcare professionals like EMTs and paramedics to the scene. Calls in response to a mental health emergency, like suicidal ideation or post-traumatic stress episodes, bring armed police officers to the scene.
Unlike qualified medical professionals, the qualifications and training provided to police officers prepare them for maintaining public order, ensuring public safety, and promoting prompt compliance from the public, not emergency mental health response, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also cites a quote attributed to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Law Enforcement Policy Center: “the mere presence of a law enforcement vehicle, an officer in uniform, and/or a weapon . . . has the potential to escalate a situation’ when the person is in crisis.”
Estimated 35,000 Mental Health Calls
The lawsuit quotes Deputy Chief of Police Ed McGinn Jr., cited as telling the Human Rights Commission on July 11, 2022, that, “upwards of 25% [of] calls on a daily basis are people who are experiencing some sort of mental health crisis. We are the epicenter of all things social service here in Worcester.”
Based on the number of total calls reported in 2024, that would amount to over 35,000 mental health calls that year received by the City of Worcester Emergency Communications department, which dispatches calls to the Worcester Police Department, Worcester Fire Department, and Worcester Emergency Medical Services.
The lawsuit also alleges that the Emergency Communications Department has inadequate practices to serve mental health emergencies.
According to the complaint:
“Emergency Communications has no specific intake procedures for mental health emergencies. There is no behavioral health specialist employed by Emergency Communications who can triage calls or provide specialized intake for mental health emergency calls. There are no intake questions or protocols that are used for answering mental health emergency calls, despite the fact that Emergency Communications receives thousands of mental health emergency calls per year.”
The Emergency Communications Department’s protocols, according to the lawsuit, are also inadequate for responding to mental health calls. It says that the department’s procedures require dispatching medical personnel to calls reporting physical injuries, while calls related to mental health emergencies require dispatching armed officers.
The city’s dispatchers have specialized training and protocols for physical health emergencies, according to the lawsuit, but not for mental or behavioral emergencies, according to the lawsuit. It also alleges that the Emergency Communications Department has limited guidance for intake and classification of mental health emergency calls.
The lawsuit also cites several studies, including from both the state and federal government.
The “Massachusetts 911 Call Study” by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) and the Executive Office of Public Safety and
Security (EOPSS), released in June 2023:
“A system in which law enforcement is the default responder to an individual experiencing a behavioral health crisis increases the potential of avoidable adverse outcomes for the subject, such as being arrested, involuntarily hospitalized, traumatized, or subjected to harm. These adverse outcomes disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).”
It also cites national guidance by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published in 2020, which says that “[p]olice involvement in crisis situations can provoke fear, anxiety, and trauma response or re-traumatization, particularly among Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) youth and families and those in low-income, segregated communities.”
SAMHSA’s 2025 guidelines for behavioral health crisis response, which is also cited, say:
“Communities that already face disparities in access to services and resources may be further marginalized through primary law enforcement response to behavioral health crisis and extended stays in emergency departments (EDs). Crisis responders may refer individuals in crisis to psychiatric inpatient services when they may have better outcomes in less restrictive and more inclusive community-based services.”
In situations of involuntary commitment under M.G.L. Ch. 123 § 12 (commonly referred to as Section 12 or “being sectioned”) the lawsuit says that the law prohibits the use of “any restraint that is unnecessary for the safety of the person being transported or other persons likely to come in contact with the person.” The Worcester Police Department’s Emergency Mental Health Procedures policy states that in cases of involuntary commitment ““restraint during transport is virtually always warranted.”
The full passage from the department’s policy:
“7. RESTRAINT, SEARCH & TRANSPORTATION:
Restraint:
Pursuant to MGL Ch. 123 § 21; any person who transports a mentally ill person to or from a facility for any purpose authorized under Chapter 123 shall not use any restraint which is unnecessary for the safety of the person being transported or other persons likely to come in contact with him. Since a person who is taken into custody pursuant to Section 12 has or is demonstrating a “likelihood of serious harm” as defined by Section 1 of Chapter 123, restraint during transport is virtually always warranted. In those rare and isolated cases where physical restraint is contraindicated, alternative methods such as close police guard must be used to insure the patient’s safety and that of the others.”
The complaint also alleges that the crisis response services pilot, which the city contracted with Community Healthlink to create for an 18-month pilot program, “was limited in time, place, and resources for its short, one and one-half year duration, failed to provide meaningful alternative responses to people with mental health disabilities and produced little, if any, diversion of 911 mental health emergency calls.
It also says that currently, the city has “no professional clinical health response for 911 mental health emergency calls.”
The City of Worcester maintains a policy that it does not comment on ongoing litigation.