What is the Medical Civil Rights Act?

Last month, Colin Barthelemy, a 26-year-old Lexington resident, was shot and killed by a police officer from Wilmington, MA, after allegedly rushing an officer with a knife. 

Police had been called on Barthelemy by another person he was with because Barthelemy had injured himself with a knife. 

That incident, which occurred on April 18, came about four years after a similar tragedy took place in Lexington. In February 2022, a Lexington police officer shot and killed Lexington resident Brendan Reilly after he allegedly charged another officer with a knife. Reilly was 35. 

Reilly was living in a group home managed by Eliot Community Human Services on Hancock Street in Lexington, where he was receiving mental health services, when he was shot by an LPD officer. 

After Reilly’s death, his family helped advocate for the passage of the Medical Civil Rights Act in Massachusetts. 

The Medical Civil Rights Act establishes a person’s right to emergency medical care during police and other law enforcement interactions by requiring coordination of first responders during medical emergencies. 

Reilly’s sister, Katelyn Reilly Hand, has testified before the Massachusetts Legislature in support of it.

“This is something we have to change. We need cameras, the Medical Civil Rights Bill needs to pass, the officers need training and support,” Kenneth Reilly, Brendan’s father, told the Observer after Barthelemy was killed. “You can’t be shooting guns and killing people, this kid’s whole life is gone.”

The Massachusetts bill was drafted by Leonore Dluhy and her physician father, the late Robert  Dluhy, who created the Medical Civil Rights Initiative, in 2019 — a campaign that promotes the Medical Civil Rights Act. The Dluhys created the Initiative, and drafted the Act that is still before Massachusetts lawmakers, after 25-year-old Freddie Gray was killed by police in Baltimore in 2015.

Connecticut passed a similar Act (also created by The Medical Civil Rights Initiative) in 2023. No other states have passed it. 

“After the deaths of Colin Barthelemy and Brendan Reilly, your lawmakers did not say a word to the public. They have also refused to deliberate or support these bills, which have sat on their desks far too long,” Frederick Brown, a retired judge on the Massachusetts Appeals Court and Lexington resident wrote to LexObserver in a letter to the editor. “Must it take one more death for our lawmakers to act?” 

The version of the Medical Civil Rights Act that is before Massachusetts lawmakers specifically states law enforcement or correctional officers must immediately request emergency medical services for anyone in their custody, control, or direct audio or visual contact who has communicated to the officer (or the officer observes) that they’re experiencing a medical emergency or are medically unstable.

The Act states law enforcement or correctional officers would not be required to request emergency medical services if they have determined that the person under their control is not experiencing a medical emergency nor are they medically unstable. Officers would also not have to call EMS if the person under their control is acting erratically because they’ve consumed drugs or alcohol, or the officers know the person has been seen by a medical professional within 24 hours and it was deemed that person was not experiencing a medical emergency or is medically unstable.

If EMS and law enforcement or correctional officers are all at the scene of an incident, officers must allow the medical personnel to treat the person under the officer’s control if that person has communicated to the officer (or the officer observes) that they’re experiencing a medical emergency or are medically unstable.

LexObserver asked the LPD for its thoughts on the Medical Civil Rights Act but they declined to comment because the April 18 incident is still under investigation. 

The Observer was able to pick the brain of a local law professor, however. Angela LaScala-Gruenewald, an assistant professor of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, thinks “anything to slow down the potential of police misconduct, make sure that people have actionable rights to request medical assistance, and then that police are also required to be attuned to when people need medical assistance is always fundamentally important.”

But through a legal lens, she worries the Act could be ineffective because it assumes people in crisis will know they have the right to medical intervention and police will call for medical intervention if needed or someone asks for it.

“This law essentially is putting a responsibility on police to make those determinations,” LaScala-Gruenewald noted. “A lot of times what we see is that can actually reproduce some of the racial and gender inequities that already exist.”

“Rights are only powerful if they’re activated and then respected,” she said. 

LaScala-Gruenewald thinks a solution for Massachusetts residents who struggle with mental illness, particularly those who are lower income or people of color, is for the state to invest in more mental health resources. 

The Medical Civil Rights Act last sat on Sen. Cindy Freidman’s desk for her review. On April 30, she referred the bill for further investigation by the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing (of which she is a Chair). That is where it will go next.

“We are in the process of reviewing this bill and I am still doing the due diligence on it in terms of how it is written, what the consequences are, where all the stakeholders land on it,” Freidman told LexObserver, adding that is the “typical process” for bills received by her committee. 

If the bill advances, it would next go before the state Senate for a vote, then before the House for their review, and then to Gov. Maura Healey for her signature.

Correction: A prior version of this article stated the Bill sits before Sen. Cindy Friedman for her review. The bill actually sits before the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, of which Friedman is a Chair, for its review.