New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his administration on Tuesday will release police body-camera footage of an NYPD shooting of a Queens man whose family said they called 911 requesting an ambulance because he was in emotional distress.
The mayor’s announcement follows public criticism of his initial comments on the Jan. 26, 2026 incident in Briarwood, including from the family and their supporters. Mamdani said in a statement in the hours after the shooting that police responding to an emergency call had “encountered an individual wielding a knife,” and noted he was “grateful to the first responders who put themselves on the line each day to keep our communities safe.”
NYPD officials said the man, 22-year-old Jabez Chakraborty, had advanced on officers with a kitchen knife after they told him repeatedly to drop it and tried to deescalate the situation. Officials said one of the officers fired several times and struck Chakraborty, who was then taken to Jamaica Hospital. A spokesperson for his family said he was on a ventilator last week and had undergone multiple surgeries after being shot at least four times.
Mamdani said on Monday night that he had visited Chakraborty and spoken with his family over the weekend. The mayor added that the NYPD was still investigating the incident and his administration would release officers’ body-camera footage of it.
“No family should experience such pain,” Mamdani wrote in a post on X. “Jabez has lived with schizophrenia for many years. I have proposed a Department of Community Safety to build a mental health system rooted in prevention, sustained care, and crisis response — and one in which officers are not burdened with responding to such crises alone.”
“While we have been building an implementation plan for this, I have instructed my administration to expedite this work,” the mayor added. “Jabez needs mental health care, not criminal prosecution by a District Attorney.”
Mamdani campaigned on creating a city agency to handle more calls involving mental health and homelessness issues with clinicians instead of police. Several police shootings this year have renewed attention to his proposal and raised questions about how the prospective agency would work.
City Hall and the NYPD did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment early Tuesday.
This is a developing story and may be updated.