{"id":168585,"date":"2026-03-19T21:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168585\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T21:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:20:12","slug":"mayor-zohran-mamdani-seeks-to-overhaul-how-nypd-handles-mental-crisis-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168585\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani seeks to overhaul how NYPD handles mental crisis calls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday ordered the creation of a new, $260 million office to reconsider how the NYPD and other\u00a0agencies respond\u00a0to mental crisis calls, gun crimes, hate crimes and domestic violence.<\/p>\n

The creation, by executive order, of what is being called the mayoral Office of Community Safety, falls short of fulfilling one of Mamdani’s\u00a0signature campaign pledges: an entirely new Department of Community Safety<\/a>, to be funded at $1.1 billion, to\u00a0supplement\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and potentially sometimes supplant \u2014 when the NYPD responds to 911 calls involving mentally troubled people.<\/p>\n

The office will be overseen by a new deputy mayor, Renita Francois, who lives in Valley Stream and worked in the de Blasio administration on criminal justice issues. She\u2019ll be Mamdani\u2019s first Black deputy mayor. She is expected to\u00a0move from Long Island to New York City, where senior mayoral officials must live. In articles<\/a> published in recent years, Francois argued that delivering genuine\u00a0public safety requires more than just paying attention to\u00a0crime statistics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, Newsday reported<\/a> that Mamdani, despite his soaring promises<\/a> to govern “expansively and audaciously,” is proceeding incrementally and cautiously so far in his first three months in office. He has left much of NYPD’s policy\u00a0intact.<\/p>\n

Creating a new, bona fide city agency<\/a> \u2014 there are dozens,\u00a0such as police, fire, parks sanitation and correction, some over a century old \u2014 would require the acquiescence of the City Council. A bill<\/a> to create a Department of Community Safety has only 28 sponsors, short of what is needed to overcome the apparent apprehension of the council speaker, Julie Menin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because Mamdani is creating only a mayoral office, rather than a city agency, a future mayor could shut it down.<\/p>\n

Mamdani’s envisioned Department of Community Safety, as described in his campaign platform<\/a> early last year before he became a household name, promised a “whole-of-government approach” where\u00a0“community safety will be prioritized like never before in NYC.”<\/p>\n

“The Department will invest in citywide mental health programs and crisis response \u2014 including deploying dedicated outreach workers in 100 subway stations, providing medical services in vacant commercial units, and increasing Transit Ambassadors to assist New Yorkers on their journeys \u2014 expand evidence-based gun violence prevention programs, and increase funding to hate violence prevention programs by 800%,” the website says.<\/p>\n

The office\u2019s creation was motivated in part by NYPD killings of mentally troubled people in crisis, which Mamdani criticized during his insurgent run for mayor last year.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/p>\n

\n\tMatthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u00a0on Thursday ordered the creation of a new, $260 million office to reconsider how the NYPD…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4275,1445,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-168585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-local-politics","tag-mamdani","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168585","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=168585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}