LETTER FROM NEW YORK
Martial Simon, 61, was known in the world of the homeless, those who line up for the soup kitchen of the Holy Apostles, in Manhattan. Often incoherent, almost always angry, says the New York Times. Especially against doctors and psychiatric hospitals, where this former parking attendant from Haiti had made about twenty stays without really being treated. And then, this Saturday, January 15, 2022, in the Times Square subway station in the heart of Manhattan, in a fit of rage, at 9:37 a.m., he pushed a woman onto the tracks as a subway arrived. Michelle Alyssa Go, 40, died instantly. She lived on the Upper East Side and worked for consulting firm Deloitte. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Martial Simon should be interned until the end of his days.
The drama has particularly moved New Yorkers, as more and more people in psychiatric distress have been present on the streets of the city since the Covid-19. Sometimes threatening, they roam the metro and its surroundings. “In nearly twenty years as a medical responder, I have never witnessed a mental health crisis like the one New York is currently experiencing”lamented the emergency doctor Anthony Almojera in a text to the New York Times.
According to a count made in January, nearly 3,400 people were sleeping in the streets or the metro. In theory, and unlike cities on the West Coast, New York has an obligation to provide emergency housing for the homeless.
A city with degraded security
Since the start of the year, the metro has been the scene of nine homicides, compared to two per year before Covid-19, most often committed by unbalanced people. They represent only a tiny portion of New York homicides, but partly explain the reluctance of the population to resume public transport, and give the city a disastrous image of security. “When you do an analysis of crimes in the metro, you find that they are the work of people with mental health problems”, estimated in October the Democratic mayor of New York, Eric Adams, a former Brooklyn police officer.
At the beginning of November, Mr. Adams decided to willingly or by force hospitalize the mentally ill in his city, even when they do not pose a threat to public order or people. “The man standing all day in the street in front of the building he was evicted from twenty-five years ago, waiting to be let in; the boxer around the corner in Midtown, who mutters while punching an invisible opponent; the unconscious man, unable to get off the train at the end of the line without the help of our crisis team; these people, like hundreds of others, urgently need treatment and refuse it when offeredsaid Mr. Adams, on November 29, in a solemn address at the town hall. There is a common and persistent misunderstanding that we cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent. In the future, we will do all we can to help those who suffer from mental illness. »
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