City Councilmember Chi Ossé was arrested Wednesday while attempting to stop one of his constituents from getting evicted from her Brooklyn home, his press secretary said.
A video shared by Ossé’s office shows NYPD officers pinning him to the ground while taking him into custody.
Brooklyn State Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest said the arrest happened outside a property on Jefferson Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant that is “currently in an active deed theft dispute.”
In a statement, Ossé’s press secretary, Saha Guerrero, said Ossé was “arrested while defending his constituent, Carmella Charrington, from eviction after six decades in her home.”
According to the New York State Attorney General’s office, deed theft happens when the title to a home is taken without the homeowner’s knowledge or consent, often through forgery or deception.
Ossé is currently being held at the NYPD’s 79th Precinct, Guerrero said.
“Black displacement is happening right now in Bed-Stuy, and Carmella is one of many Black homeowners battling deed theft in Brooklyn,” Guerrero said in his statement.
Guerrero added that Ossé has been advocating for an eviction moratorium for homeowners facing deed theft for months.
It was not immediately clear what charges, if any, Ossé may face. NY1 has reached out to the NYPD for comment.
In a post on social media, City Council Speaker Julie Menin said she had seen the videos of Ossé “being aggressively pushed to the ground and arrested during a protest.”
Menin said she was in contact with his office and the NYPD “to ensure he is safe and quickly released.”
At an unrelated press conference Wednesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani responded to a question about the arrest.
“I think first is to say that the councilmember is rightly passionate about tackling the scourge of deed theft, and he has been someone who has been leading,” the mayor said.
“It’s been a pleasure to be working with him alongside the creation of efforts that our administration will be delivering on to combat that same scourge, and I’ll follow up on the details of this arrest,” he added.