{"id":168797,"date":"2026-03-20T00:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T00:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168797\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T00:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T00:45:10","slug":"nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani-launches-community-safety-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168797\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani launches community safety office"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday unveiled a new office dedicated to community safety, a tentative first step toward fulfilling a key campaign pledge<\/a> to reduce the role of police in responding to mental health emergencies. <\/p>\n

Mamdani initially envisioned a $1 billion-per-year agency that would dispatch civilian workers, instead of police, in non-criminal emergencies. His initial proposal is far more modest, though, launching with only two staff members and few immediate plans to shift the city\u2019s approach to 911 calls.<\/p>\n

It will soon scale up, eventually \u201cushering in a new era for our city\u2019s crisis response,\u201d Mamdani said, as he signed the executive order<\/a> at City Hall flanked by criminal justice advocates.<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficers have to handle 200,000 mental health calls a year,\u201d the Democratic mayor said. \u201cThat is not a system that is working. Today marks the end of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, he said his administration will look to expand funding and support for an existing program, B-HEARD, which dispatches mental health workers in response to 911 calls for people in emotional distress. <\/p>\n

That program, started in 2021, is one of several initiatives of its kind that have spread across the country<\/a> in recent years. It has languished in New York, in part due to lack of funding and support, a recent audit<\/a> found. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to find out,\u201d Mamdani said Thursday, \u201cwhat it looks like when someone is willing to invest, not just financially, but also politically in this method of response.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backers of Mamdani\u2019s plan say police often escalate confrontations with people in emotional distress, who would be better served by trained mental health professionals. <\/p>\n

The mayor has cited the recent police shooting of a Queens man, Jabez Chakraborty, whose family called 911 because he was acting erratically, as an example of an encounter that would benefit from mental health worker. The department said Chakraborty lunged at them with a knife.<\/p>\n

Critics of Mamdani accuse him of downplaying the complexities<\/a> of the city\u2019s vast dispatch system while understating the number of calls that require a police response. <\/p>\n

At a City Council hearing Wednesday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch estimated that about 2% of calls for service would be removed from the department\u2019s jurisdiction. \u201cYou need to send the police when there\u2019s a call for a violent person,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The creation of a community safety agency was a core campaign promise for Mamdani, who broke with his opponents by refusing to call for an expansion of the police department. <\/p>\n

The Office of Community Safety will also house existing city programs to reduce shootings through violence interrupters, to combat hate crimes and to provide services to victims of sexual assault, among others.<\/p>\n

It will be led by Renita Francois, who previously oversaw former Mayor Bill de Blasio\u2019s plan to reduce violence in public housing. <\/p>\n

Mamdani delivered the announcement surrounded by supporters and elected officials, who hailed the plan and urged patience from New Yorkers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be some mistakes,\u201d warned Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. \u201cThat happens in the police department, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday unveiled a new office dedicated to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9894,416,32394,417,2953,53305,5302,8041,2190,9,24,56,63,65,64,87,421,82],"class_list":["post-168797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bill-de-blasio","tag-elections","tag-executive-orders","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-jabez-chakraborty","tag-jessica-tisch","tag-law-enforcement","tag-mental-health","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-politics","tag-u-s-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168797","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=168797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}