The Queens District Attorney on Friday filed assault and criminal weapons possession charges against Jabez Chakraborty, the 22-year-old man shot last month by NYPD officers during a mental health crisis, despite Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s public pleas not to have him criminally charged.
The charges came as Chakraborty remains hospitalized at Jamaica Hospital, where he’s been recovering from multiple gunshot wounds since the Jan. 26 incident.
Chakraborty pled not guilty to both charges, according to Queens Criminal Court records.
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 but repeated 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 thanking the officers for putting their lives on the line.
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 laying 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.”
The family was recalling the NYPD killing of Win Rozario, the 19-year-old who was fatally shot by officers responding to a call for a mental health emergency after he advanced toward them with a pair of scissors in his hands.
Mamdani soon walked back his earlier statement, visiting 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 which is supposed to send mental health clinicians instead of NYPD officers. Only a small percentage of those calls were handled by mental health clinicians.
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