Police shot and injured a knife-wielding man in Queens on Jan. 25, 2026.
Picture by Dean Moses
Mayor Zohran Mamdani made making a Division of Neighborhood Security to reply to psychological well being crises a key promise in his profitable marketing campaign final 12 months. Incidents comparable to final week’s police-involved capturing in Queens that left a 22-year-old man in a psychological well being disaster critically wounded exhibit that Mamdani can’t afford to defer on the division’s creation.
The household of Jabez Chakraborty, who stays hospitalized in vital situation after the Jan. 25 incident, is demanding to know the way a easy request for help for the younger man amid his disaster may have ended like this. Their plea for solutions should not be ignored.
Chakraborty was shot when he allegedly charged at officers assigned to the 107th Precinct who got here to their residence. In accordance with a preliminary NYPD investigation, the younger man ran on the officers with a knife, and the cops opened fireplace.
Anybody in an analogous state of affairs to the officers would have felt the necessity to defend themselves. It’s simple to lose sight of the officers’ perspective when instances like this come up. The judgment of whether or not the officers acted appropriately on this case should be left to these dealing with the continuing investigation.
However in a broader sense, the difficulty reveals the necessity for town to do one thing totally different. Law enforcement officials should not be the one ones to reply to a psychological well being disaster involving somebody who poses a direct, dangerous menace to themselves and their family members.
Mayor Mamdani reiterated on Tuesday his name for a “Department of Community Safety” to handle psychological well being points in New York. The mayor, nonetheless, was fast to notice that the proposed division — which nonetheless should be created via laws nonetheless beneath evaluation within the Metropolis Council — wouldn’t reply to violent conditions alone.
Pressed by reporters at an unrelated press convention, Mamdani mentioned his administration is contemplating adopting a “co-response model” that will contain the NYPD, psychological well being professionals and peer counselors responding to psychological well being crises if and when the Division of Neighborhood Security turns into a actuality.
It’s laborious to see every other method that will work aside from a “co-response model.” The secret is de-escalation — a number of individuals working to calm a person down and persuade them to just accept assist.
Law enforcement officials are skilled to defend themselves on obligation and defend these they serve with the very best instruments and techniques out there to them. By way of no fault of their very own, these officers haven’t been skilled sufficient in de-escalating crises involving individuals affected by psychological well being issues. As such, the accountability of responding to extreme psychological well being crises shouldn’t be left to the NYPD alone; they’ve greater than sufficient to do.
The mayor should work with the Council to swiftly approve the division’s creation — then act to workers, finance, practice, equip, and dispatch the company as shortly as humanly potential.
