NYPD officers shot and killed Win Rozario earlier this year. The 19-year-old was armed with scissors and had called 911 in a mental health crisis.

He's one of at least 20 people who have had a fatal encounter with police since 2015 as they were experiencing some sort of emotional or mental health crisis.

“I was definitely having a mental health crisis,” said social worker Jordyn Rosenthal, who is the lead organizer with Correct Crisis Today. "I've called a hotline before and said, ‘If this is the rat race, I don't know how much I've my got in me.’"

Rosenthal believes trained individuals who've battled their own mental health challenges are best equipped to respond to those experiencing a mental health crisis.

"A peer, a person with lived mental health experience is going to understand that feeling based off that personal experience themselves,” she said.

Rosenthal and other advocates testified during a City Council oversight hearing Monday about the Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division, or B-HEARD.

"In August of 2019, I called for help while my son was having a crisis,” said Peggy Herrer, a youth counselor who is also part of the group Freedom Agenda. “I specifically said I wanted the ambulance there. Police showed up … My son was beat up. My son never got the help he needed."

Started in 2021, B-HEARD is a city-run pilot program consisting of mental health teams and EMTs or paramedics who respond to mental health 911 calls. Part of the aim is to send fewer police to the scene of mental health crises.

The Adams administration said B-HEARD teams responded to 73% of all eligible 911 calls in the pilot area of 31 police precincts over the past fiscal year — or 14,951 of 20,451 eligible calls.

Eligible calls include those in which there is no known violence or weapons related to the 911 call and that there is no indicated need for immediate transportation to the hospital.

"We know that getting these specialized teams to these mental health emergencies is very important,” FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Cesar Escobar testified during the hearing.

Critics insist that if you count the total 51,329 mental health calls, including those eligible for a B-HEARD response, the data shows police responded to the majority of those calls, while B-HEARD teams only responded to 30%.

"What you would at least hope for is that a pilot that is called a non-police model would in fact be sending the non-police teams regularly,” said Ruth Lowenkron, an attorney who also works as the director of disability justice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

Mental health advocates are also calling on the city to extend the B-HEARD program from being operational from 16 hours a day to 24 hours a day. Currently the pilot program only exists in 31 police precincts. The city said the program will begin to respond to mental health calls outside of those precincts.

During Wednesday's hearing, the executive director of the Mayor's Office of Community Health testified, saying in part that B-HEARD teams have consistently responded to the majority of eligible calls in the pilot area since launching and that the number of people who received a B-HEARD response increased significantly from about 2,000 in fiscal year 2022 to about 15,000 in fiscal year 2024.