NYC police begin roundup to purge streets of the mentally ill

New York City’s finest have embarked on a new safety project to rid the streets of those deemed mentally ill.

Police, armed with a list of most-wanted mentally ill and a high-tech tracking system, are scouring the streets for suspects who are not taking their court-ordered medicine, and forcibly dragging them to hospitals, according to a report in the New York Post.

The city’s new policy comes on the heels of two subway deaths in which the victims were pushed onto the tracks by mentally ill suspects, according to the Post.

“After the Queens subway attack, the [city] decided to take a proactive approach to track down the most dangerous mental-health patients that currently have mental-hygiene warrants” out for them, one law enforcement official said in the Post report.

So far, 25 names grace the most-wanted list of mentally ill, the Post reported.

The arrest warrants the police are pursuing do not mean the targets are wanted for crimes, but rather for avoiding court-ordered mental-health treatment, according to the Post. Police in the city’s Real Time Crime Center are tasked with the roundup using advanced technology. Once tracked down, the suspects then will be forcibly taken by detectives to hospitals for treatment, the Post reports.

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