On April 18, a young resident of Lexington, Colin Barthelemy, was shot and killed by a police officer during a mental health crisis. The circumstances surrounding his death were remarkably similar to the police-involved death of Brendan Reilly, who had experienced a mental health crisis on February 12, 2022, after a state-funded mental health institution in Lexington neglected to administer his medications.
In recent years, in Massachusetts, psychiatric crises have resulted in many fatalities, with an exceptionably high number of police-involved deaths since 2021. Recent state data also suggest rising numbers of injuries and assaults to first responders. As a physician, I urge you to understand the importance of preventing poor medical outcomes in the first place, as opposed to allowing them to continue, and routinely litigating in the aftermath of these events.
Over the past decade, research conducted by the Medical Civil Rights Initiative suggests that unclear legal protections and incomplete data collection have prohibited Massachusetts, and other U.S. states, from preventing avoidable in-custody deaths and understanding the nature, timing and handling of critical incidents. In 2019, our Initiative drafted the Medical Civil Rights Act, to establish a right to emergency medical care during police and other law enforcement interactions, and to safely coordinate first responders during medical emergencies. In late 2024, we drafted a companion bill, to establish the first data collection in the U.S. regarding the delivery of emergency medical care during law enforcement contact–to better understand factors that contribute to in-custody deaths, and to allow corrective measures to be taken.
It took one poor medical outcome in Connecticut for this state to swiftly, unanimously enact the Medical Civil Rights Act and to introduce the second bill, which is now under consideration by the Connecticut Legislature. However, in Massachusetts, immediately after the April 18th officer-involved shooting, a Lexington senator announced that she would not advance either bill, despite favorable reports by the Judiciary Committee. Now, both bills will die, and lives will be needlessly lost, in the words of the late co-founder, Dr. Robert G. Dluhy. As a state, we should be better than this.
Over the years, hundreds of impacted families have written in support of these bills, imploring Massachusetts lawmakers to urgently act. Hundreds of other persons have testified in support, including legal scholars, retired judges, medical professionals, and officers. Despite both bills costing nearly zero dollars to implement, and a forecast that they will save taxpayers billions of dollars in civil rights payouts, Massachusetts lawmakers continue to choose to allow avoidable deaths to be churned through the courts, as though a legal remedy is a substitute for a life lost.
The disparity between these two state legislatures should raise important questions about whether the lives of civilians and first responders matter enough to Massachusetts lawmakers, as the sister of Brendan Reilly suggested in a recent op-ed.
Unfortunately, there has been significant misunderstanding regarding whether clinicians can serve as first or sole responders, and thus whether police contact can be avoided during psychiatric emergencies. Typically, this reasoning results from poor understanding of existing policy and procedure, and why people in medical crisis end up in police contact. It also reflects a wrong assumption that clinicians can enter a scene that is potentially unsafe. A disastrous incident on April 4th in Boston, involving many first responders who were injured, should illustrate the flaws in this reasoning. In most of the psychiatric crises in Massachusetts, police contact was inevitable, based on how these crises were reported and the circumstances surrounding them. However, advancing civil rights protections, establishing clear legal guidelines regarding the duties and coordination of first responders, and studying delivery of emergency medical care could help prevent them.
Given these facts, when has Massachusetts sustained enough loss for the Legislature to act? Perhaps, the answer lies not in the lawmakers but the constituents, who pay quite literally for the consequences of unclear state law—both with their lives and the payouts that follow. Considering the tragic deaths of two valued members of the Lexington community, I hope for you to be the impetus for enactment of these bills.
For the Medical Civil Rights Initiative,
Stephen C. Wright, MD
To contact Dr. Wright or for information, please contact initiative@medcivilrights.com.