May­or Rahm Emanuel’s recent attempts to soft­en his image may be over­shad­owed by recent alle­ga­tions that Emanuel screamed in the face of two men­tal health activists who con­front­ed him about his clo­sure of half the city’s men­tal health clin­ics in 2012 — but only after he was able to get them behind closed doors.

“Not during a single [mayoral] debate did anyone ask” about the issue, he says. “It’s a last minute opportunity to finally get the candidate talking about this.”

Matt Gins­berg-Jaeck­le and Deb­bie Del­ga­do, activists with the Men­tal Health Move­ment, con­front­ed Emanuel in a pub­lic meet­ing Wednes­day night about the impact of the clin­ic closures.

In a video of the encounter tak­en by Gins­berg-Jaeck­le, Del­ga­do describes the per­son­al impact of her clin­ic being closed, and the dif­fi­cul­ty her fam­i­ly has had deal­ing with her son’s shoot­ing death after their men­tal health clin­ic was shut­tered, to a straight-faced Emanuel.

“Three years ago, you closed our clin­ics down. My son was get­ting help. Now they diag­nosed him as major depres­sion,” said Delgado.

But accord­ing to Gins­berg-Jaeck­le and Del­ga­do, Emanuel’s demeanor changed when they were invit­ed to chat with him behind closed doors. Gins­berg-Jaeck­le described the encounter on Facebook:

“After try­ing to keep his cool, he told us that he would speak to us after the event in a sep­a­rate room. There, Deb­bie and me saw the Real Rahm. Now off cam­era, Rah­m’s voice raised, his demeanor changed, in no time he was shout­ing in my face, nose-to-nose. … ​“YOU’RE GONNA RESPECT ME!”…. “The Real Rahm accused Deb­bie and me of ​“cre­at­ing a cir­cus in there,” to which we respond­ed that two close friends — Jean­nette Han­son and Helen Mor­ley — had lost their lives because of his deci­sion to close their clinics.”

Speak­ing to In These Times, Gins­berg-Jaeck­le said it was ​“poet­ic jus­tice” that Emanuel would be under pres­sure for his deci­sion to close the clin­ics almost three years to the day a Men­tal Health move­ment activists told Emanuel she would die if he closed her clin­ic. Helen Mor­ley passed away in June 2012.

“We’ve been wait­ing for three years for this moment, for him to come face-to-face with the deci­sions that he has made,” said Ginsberg-Jaeckle.

The mayor’s office has denied that Emanuel screamed at the activists. A state­ment from his chief of staff to the Huff­in­g­ton Post said ​“Rahm’s 15-minute pri­vate meet­ing end­ed very cordially.”

But it’s not the first time he’s been accused of explod­ing at a crit­ic. In 2013, jour­nal­ist Michael Hast­ings said Emanuel respond­ed to an uncom­fort­able ques­tion by: ​“attempt­ing to berate me, then grabbed me, while his body­guards approached.” That inter­ac­tion was caught on an audio recording.

The sto­ry has rever­ber­at­ed through­out nation­al media. Gins­berg-Jaeck­le said he will be appear­ing on NBC Chan­nel 5 on Thurs­day evening to dis­cuss the encounter. He told In These Times Thurs­day after­noon that, accord­ing to NBC Chan­nel 5, the Emanuel cam­paign had dug up his arrest record in an osten­si­ble attempt to dis­cred­it him.

To Gins­berg-Jaeck­le, the con­ver­sa­tion is long overdue.

“Not dur­ing a sin­gle [may­oral] debate did any­one ask” about the issue, he says. ​“It’s a last minute oppor­tu­ni­ty to final­ly get the can­di­date talk­ing about this.”