Mayor Zohran Mamdani seeks to overhaul how NYPD handles mental crisis calls

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday ordered the creation of a new office to reconsider how the NYPD responds to mental crisis calls, gun crimes, hate crimes and domestic violence.

But the new entity, called the mayoral Office of Community Safety, falls short of fulfilling one of Mamdani's signature campaign pledges: an entirely new Department of Community Safety, to be funded at $1.1 billion, to supplement — and potentially sometimes supplant — when the NYPD responds to 911 calls involving mentally troubled people.

New deputy mayor

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.

"The work that Renita is undertaking is how we will lower crime in New York City, and it is how we will make our city safe for every person who calls it their home," Mamdani said at a rally-like event at City Hall before signing the executive order creating the office.

Francois will be Mamdani’s first Black deputy mayor. She is expected to move from Long Island to New York City, where senior mayoral officials must live. In articles published in recent years, Francois argued that delivering genuine public safety requires more than just paying attention to crime statistics. 

At the news conference to announce the office, she said "we best ensure that we are safe" by "disrupting the vicious cycle of streets, shelters, hospital and jails for unhoused New Yorkers in mental health crisis."

"We cannot punish our way to better lives," she said.

Proceeding with caution

Last week, Newsday reported that Mamdani, despite his soaring promises to govern "expansively and audaciously," is proceeding incrementally and cautiously so far in his first three months in office. He has left much of his predecessor Eric Adams' NYPD policies intact.

Creating a new, bona fide city department would require the acquiescence of the City Council. A bill to create a Department of Community Safety has only 28 sponsors, short of what would be needed to overcome any apprehension of the council speaker, Julie Menin. 

Rendy Desamours, a spokesperson for Menin, said she supports the idea of having the police respond to fewer mental health calls but is awaiting details from the administration on what a department would look like and hasn’t taken a position on the legislation.

"The speaker believes that NYPD officers are asked to take on too much responsibility and supports lessening the reliance on officers to respond to mental health calls," Desamours said. "She will thoroughly review proposals aimed at safely achieving that goal."

Because Mamdani is creating only a mayoral office, rather than a full city department, a future mayor could shut it down.

Unanswered questions

The office’s 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. 

Earlier this week, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch estimated about 2% of calls would be taken from police.

Liz Glazer, the deputy secretary for public safety under Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, said the new office is in extraordinarily capable hands but there are unanswered questions: How many more 911 calls reporting mental crises will be directed to civilians instead of the police? Will there be a change in how those calls are triaged? What do civilian responders do once arriving on the scene? And, she noted that the city’s civilian response program — called B-HEARD — is to remain under the FDNY, not Mamdani’s community safety office.

"It’s going to need a lot of work because right now it’s really just an amalgam of other offices," Glazer said. "It’s not clear exactly what the goal is. What does success like look for this collection of offices, which are simply being collected from around the city and being put under one umbrella?"

Jumaane Williams, the city’s elected public advocate, urged patience for the new office.

"We’ll have plenty of people in hysterics saying this will destroy the city somehow. I’ve been around. I’ve heard that every single time we’ve taken a step forward," he said. "There will be some mistakes. That happens everywhere. It happens in the police department. And I never hear people saying, let’s — well, I do hear some people — but most are not saying, let’s dismantle the police department."

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.