By Jacob Kaye<\/p>\n
A Queens judge decried the state\u2019s mental health system on Friday during the arraignment of Jabez Chakraborty, a 22-year-old man diagnosed with schizophrenia who charged at a cop with a knife after his family called 911 for medical help last month. <\/p>\n
Queens Supreme Court Justice Jessica Earle-Gargan, who presides over the Queens Mental Health Court, called Chakraborty\u2019s case \u201cextremely difficult\u201d as the Queens man was arraigned on attempted assault and criminal possession of a weapon charges while in the hospital recovering from wounds he suffered after being shot by police officer on Jan. 26 in his family\u2019s home. <\/p>\n
Chakraborty, who pleaded not guilty to the charges on Friday, was in the throes of an escalating mental health crisis when his family called 911 in the hopes that medics would come to their Briarwood home and involuntarily remove the 22-year-old for treatment. Instead, two police officers showed up and were met by Chakraborty, who was wielding a knife and moving toward them. Police officer Tyree White fired his gun, hitting Chakraborty four times. <\/p>\n
In the weeks that followed, advocates and elected officials, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, called on Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz not to prosecute Chakraborty, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia three years ago and who was scheduled to begin increasing his treatment at a Queens psychiatric hospital the day after the shooting. <\/p>\n
But Katz rebuffed those calls and charged Chakraborty on Friday, further calling for the judge to send him to Rikers Island, the city\u2019s jail complex where mental health and medical care have been found to be severely lacking. <\/p>\n
Earle-Gargan said determining whether Chakraborty should be released ahead of his trial, be given bail or be sent to Rikers was complex. After hearing arguments from prosecutors and Chakraborty\u2019s attorneys with the Legal Aid Society, Earle-Gargan paused the proceeding for around 10 minutes. When she returned, she called the case a \u201ctragic situation, to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mental health system in this state has failed many,\u201d the judge said. <\/p>\n
The judge set bail against Chakraborty at $50,000 cash or $100,000 partially secured bond. She said remanding the 22-year-old, who remains in critical condition in Jamaica Hospital and unable to walk, would be \u201cinappropriate.\u201d <\/p>\n
The view was shared by Chakraborty\u2019s attorneys, who bashed the DA\u2019s office for arguing that the 22-year-old should be held in jail. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be inhumane to put someone like this in prison,\u201d Shanaz Chowdhury, one of Chakraborty\u2019s attorneys, said. <\/p>\n
Laura Crowley Eraso, Chakraborty\u2019s other attorney, described the DA\u2019s wish to remand Chakraborty as “unconscionable and deeply disturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katz defended her office\u2019s request and the charges brought against the man, telling reporters in a rare press conference after the Friday arraignment that she was \u201cduty bound to follow the facts, evidence and circumstances where they lead us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The district attorney said that bringing the charges also would be the first step toward forcing Chakraborty into a mental health treatment program through the courts. While she didn\u2019t commit to seeking a mental health disposition, she noted that bringing the criminal case wouldn\u2019t \u201cpreclude\u201d the alternative path. <\/p>\n
The DA\u2019s decision was bashed by Chakraborty\u2019s family, who previously accused prosecutors and police of taking their phones and interrogating them in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. <\/p>\n
\u201cJabez is recovering from multiple surgeries, handcuffed to a hospital bed,\u201d Juli Chakraborty, the 22-year-old\u2019s mother said in a statement. \u201cHe has a long, difficult recovery ahead, and now DA Katz wants to put him in prison. Hasn’t he suffered enough? Locking him up will destroy his life. All we want is for him to be able to heal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDA Katz must have no heart at all,\u201d the mother added. \u201cWhy does she want to torture a young man who has already suffered so much? Our family is demanding that she drop these charges against Jabez and that he be unshackled as he recovers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chakraborty was video conferenced into the arraignment from the hospital on Friday. He burst into tears multiple times as prosecutors described the events that led to the shooting. <\/p>\n
The police shooting has reignited conversations about Mamdani\u2019s plan to create a Department of Community Safety, which could potentially make it so police are not the primary responders to mental health crises. <\/p>\n
On Friday, Katz didn\u2019t go as far as to endorse Mamdani\u2019s proposal, but lauded the mayor for getting New Yorkers to examine the city\u2019s current response to mental health crises. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be great if the system was able to fix this issue and work with this defendant before this incident happened,\u201d the DA said. \u201cWouldn’t it be great not to be here talking about filing charges against someone when the police were defending themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the mental health system didn’t work for whatever reason,\u201d she added. \u201cOr maybe it did, or maybe it didn\u2019t, but we still need to assess that.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jacob Kaye A Queens judge decried the state\u2019s mental health system on Friday during the arraignment of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-137522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}