SEE: NYPD Handcuffs Homeless Woman In Jamaica Subway Station

JAMAICA, QUEENS — A viral video of NYPD officers pinning a homeless woman to the ground and handcuffing her in a Queens subway station Friday outraged bystanders and advocates for the homeless, who called the encounter "dehumanizing" and "traumatizing."

A team of officials from the Department of Homeless Services, the NYPD's homeless outreach unit and the nonprofit Bowery Residence Committee came across the woman about 9 a.m. in the Jamaica Center subway station, a police spokesperson said.

Doctors on the scene decided the woman needed to be taken to the hospital for a mental health evaluation in accordance with a state law that allows qualified physicians to hospitalize people who appear to be mentally ill and may seriously harm themselves or others, according to the NYPD spokesperson.

Videos posted to Twitter show two NYPD officers holding the woman to the ground and handcuffing her as a bystander shouts "Let her go!"

NYPD Sergeant Jessica McRorie said the officers handcuffed the woman at the direction of a mental health clinician on the scene after she tried to leave. The woman was not arrested for any crimes, officials said.

1/ Jamaica Center subway station in Queens. Cops on top of and handcuffing a homeless woman. Is this help?

cc: @CynthiaNixon@shaunking pic.twitter.com/Zt9kDlrsrt
— Narvin Singh (@NarvinASingh) November 22, 2019

2/ Mental health professional on the scene noticing my Bernie pin and trying to convince me that they’re actually helping her. pic.twitter.com/gUq1DmQgW7
— Narvin Singh (@NarvinASingh) November 22, 2019

3/ Me trying to plead with the mental health dude that this isn’t help. I hope this woman does get help, better than this. pic.twitter.com/3BsVxHrXOQ
— Narvin Singh (@NarvinASingh) November 22, 2019

"Some people who are suffering from mental illness, and due to their mental illness, do not always wish to seek care, even when they are a danger to themselves or others," NYC Health + Hospitals President Mitchell Katz, who was at the scene, said in a statement. "However, in clinical circumstances, where someone's mental illness is severe, the right thing to do is to bring them to a hospital so they can be appropriately evaluated and cared for."

The woman previously worked as a registered nurse before developing an unidentified mental illness and now lives in that subway station, according to a city official who was briefed on the situation but wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

The official declined to elaborate on what specifically prompted physicians on the scene to decide the woman needed to be taken to a hospital against her will, citing the federal health information privacy law HIPAA.

Witnesses and others who saw the video pushed back on officials' argument that they were helping the woman.

"That doesn't look like help to me," Narvin Singh, the commuter who filmed the encounter, said in the video. "I reject your notion that him getting on top of her and handcuffing her is help."

"I am so heartbroken over what they did to that poor woman on the ground," Singh said in a statement on social media later that day. "I'm so fed up with how people are being treated."

Advocates for homeless individuals echoed Singh's concerns.

"Today's disturbing video of NYPD officers forcibly restraining and handcuffing a woman at the Jamaica Center subway station is completely unacceptable," Shelly Nortz, executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for the Homeless, said in a statement Friday. "This conduct is dehumanizing and traumatizing for a person who has obviously already endured too much trauma in her life."

In contrast, Mayor Bill de Blasio emphasized the city's "moral obligation" to help people get care, though he called the videos "painful for anyone to watch."

The NYPD wrote in a statement: "This video depicts collaboration between police officers and health care professionals, and shows the challenges they face every day."

These videos are painful for anyone to watch — especially if you have a loved one with mental illness who has refused medical care.

We have a moral obligation to help people get the care they need. It’s not easy — but it’s the right thing to do. https://t.co/nZMdsTzE94
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 22, 2019