On Tuesday, a man entered a Crown Heights synagogue and, for reasons unknown, stabbed a student in the head. Police were called to the scene and the attacker was fatally shot after lunging towards officers, knife in hand. 

A new program intiative by Mayor Bill de Balsio seeks to change the way mentally ill offenders interact with and are treated by  the criminal  justice system. 

The Brooklyn Eagle’s legal editor, Charisma L. Troiano, sat down with Joyce Kendrick, an attorney with Brooklyn Defender Services who practices in Brooklyn’s Mental Health Court, and Carol Fisler, the director of the Center for Court Innovation’s Alternative-to-Detention Programs. David Cloud, Senior Program Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice, also joined in for a discussion on this monumental feat for the City.