Subway shover shows the evil of NYC’s revolving-door mental-health system

It’s a tale New Yorkers know too well: Mentally ill man or woman attacks a random stranger, and soon turns out to be a long-known threat who’s been cycled through the city’s revolving-door mental-health system for years.

In the wee hours of Monday morning, Ebony Butts, an “emotionally disturbed” woman arrested nine times since 1999, shoved two tourists from Mexico onto the subway tracks in Manhattan .

Thankfully, nearby good Samaritans helped the two women (who only suffered minor injuries) back off the tracks, and police officers were close by to arrest Butts and deliver her to Bellevue Hospital for an evaluation.

Why does this keep happening?

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Why was Butts even in the subway that night, instead of receiving long-term treatment in one of the city’s many psychiatric wards?

Thank progressives in the Legislature and City Council, who believe that treating mentally ill people involuntarily is “inhumane.”

What’s really inhumane is letting the seriously unwell run around harming themselves and others instead of getting them the help they need.

The city’s neglect in this case is blatant: Butts was nabbed back in 2016 after slugging a 38-year-old woman in the face.

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That proved she was a danger to herself and others, but the city allowed her (as it has so many others) to fall through the cracks of a system where no one wants to take accountability for the worst mentally ill , and hospitals, in particular, quickly turn them loose, sometimes in a matter of hours.

Rise, repeat, reoffend.

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Ebony’s sister, Tueniesha Butts, told the Daily News that she’s been trying to get her sister help “for like 20 years” with no success, but: “Nobody acts like they wanted to help me.”

Families all across Gotham have felt that same pain.

Butts’ story echoes that of Jordan Neely — whose tragic death on an F train last year followed years of overt untreated mental illness that was ignored by city authorities — and countless other cases.

Mayor Adams has taken steps to fix the problem: In 2022, he expanded city workers’ ability to immediately hospitalize chronically mentally ill people , even if they refuse treatment.

But he can’t fix the whole system himself, and there’s little appetite on the state level to address the crisis; Assembly leaders this year sent a bill to clarify standards for involuntary long-term treatment to rot in committee limbo .

The squeamishness about involuntarily committing those who are too sick to seek or agree to treatment themselves turns tragic cases like Butts into ticking time bombs.

Her sister’s castigation of the system is damning: “The government and this country have enough money to help these people with mental disabilities before they go out and harm a citizen going to work, or going to school, especially when their family is speaking up trying to get them help. It’s falling on deaf ears.”

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