Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz on Friday filed charges of attempted assault in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree against Jabez Chakraborty, a 22-year-old man who has lived with schizophrenia who was shot last month by police officers. The charge comes despite Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s public pleas not to have him prosecuted.
Chakraborty pleaded not guilty as the indictment was unsealed at an arraignment where he appeared virtually from Jamaica Hospital, where he’s still recovering from multiple gunshot wounds since the Jan. 26 incident. He periodically burst into tears throughout the proceeding.
Judge Jessica Earle-Gargan rejected the DA’s request to hold Chakraborty, who has no prior criminal convictions, without bail even as a prosecutor described him as a violent man who had attacked his family and a neighbor on prior occasions.
She instead granted his release on $50,000 bail.
Chakraborty is confined to a hospital bed with serious wounds to his stomach and groin that leave him unable to stand or walk.
“This is an extremely difficult case,” Judge Earle-Gargan said while criticizing the city and state mental health systems. “This is a tragic situation to say the least.”
Speaking to reporters just after the arraignment, Katz defended her charging decision, rhetorically asking: “What happens if we take no action and he harms someone else? Mr. Chakraborty’s actions were quite serious and he now faces serious consequences.”
Asked about Mamdani’s calling on her not to pursue charges, Katz didn’t answer answer directly but instead praised the new mayor’s efforts to try and.address mental health concerns.
“This is a nightmare. We didn’t need police, we just needed medical transport. When we called 911 for an ambulance, we never could have imagined that we would end up here today,” Chakraborty’s family said in a statement.
“Jabez and our family were safe in our home until the NYPD arrived,” his family said. “Now Jabez is recovering from multiple surgeries, handcuffed to a hospital bed. He has a long, difficult recovery ahead. Now DA Katz wants to put him in prison. Hasn’t he suffered enough?”
‘We Were Terrified’
Asked about the charges by THE CITY at an unrelated press conference earlier on Friday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani — who made reforming how the city responds to mental health emergencies one of his central campaign pledges — said he had not spoken with Katz directly while repeating his position that Chakraborty should not be charged.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks inside an MTA bus at the West depot in the Bronx about providing free service, Feb. 13, 2026. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“No family should have to endure this kind of pain. What they need right now is care, dignity, and support,” Mamdani said. “Jabez should not be prosecuted by the Queen’s district attorney. His handcuffs should be removed, and he should be receiving the care that he needs.”
Chakraborty was shot inside his family’s home after a family member called 911 to report he was experiencing a mental health crisis. They asked for an ambulance and told a 911 dispatcher he was having a schizophrenic episode, saying he’d thrown glass at the wall but had no weapons and wasn’t violent. The caller sought “an “involuntary transport” to the hospital.
When two officers entered the home in Jamaica, Queens, Chakraborty picked up a big kitchen knife and advanced toward them, body camera footage released by the NYPD showed, while a family member tried to hold him back and shield him from officers.
Less than 30 seconds after they entered the home, one of the cops fired four shots, critically injuring Chakraborty.
Shortly after the shooting, Mamdani’s office released a statement where he praised “:the first responders who put themselves on the line each day to keep our communities safe.”
But four days later, Chakraborty’s family released their own statement through the group DRUM, Desis Rising Up & Moving, a group that had been strongly supportive of Mamdani’s candidacy, decrying the NYPD’s actions. After the shooting, the family said, NYPD officers had seized their phones and questioned them on their immigration status while Jabez was still lying on the ground.
“We did not call the police. Instead of medical responders, the NYPD arrived and shot our son multiple times right in front of us,” the statement read. “As our son was being shot, we were terrified that what happened to Win Rozario was going to happen to Jabez.” (Rozario was 19 years old in 2024, when he was fatally shot by officers responding to a call for a mental health emergency after he advanced toward them while holding a pair of scissors.)
Mamdani soon visited Chakraborty in the hospital and asking the DA not to file charges.
The shooting restored focus on Mamdani’s promise to greatly reduce the number of police interactions with individuals experiencing psychiatric episodes through the formation of a new Department of Community Safety. That department is still in the planning stages and details remain scant.
THE CITY reported this week that 86% of 911 mental health calls are routed to the NYPD despite the expansion of B-HEARD, a program started under de Blasio.
The program is supposed to send mental health clinicians instead of NYPD officers. Only a small percentage of those calls were handled by mental health clinicians, THE CITY found.
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