In a city resigned to seeing untreated serious mental illness spasm into bursts of violence, the savage killing of emergency responder Alison Russo-Elling in Queens this September escalated a sense of urgency to do something — but what? Clarissa Crader, a devoted caretaker to her son, Justin Campbell, has been trying to figure that out for years.

Author Archives: Alyssa Katz
Alyssa is a deputy editor with THE CITY and a former member of the NY Daily News editorial board. Previously, Katz was editor of The New York World and City Limits. She is the author of “The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life” and “Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us.” Before covering urban policy, politics and housing, Alyssa was a cultural critic for The Village Voice, The Nation, and Spin. She specializes in investigative reporting and coverage of politics, urban planning, and housingl she was also founding editor of accountability journalism project embedded in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, She received her BA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Katz lives in Brooklyn, New York.