New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has signed an executive order to create an Office of Community Safety, marking a tentative first step toward fulfilling a campaign promise to reduce the role of police in responding to mental health emergencies. The new office, unveiled on Thursday, currently has only two staff members but is expected to scale up, eventually “ushering in a new era for our city’s crisis response,” Mamdani said during the announcement at City Hall.
Mamdani originally proposed a $1 billion-per-year agency that would dispatch civilian workers instead of police for non-criminal emergencies. However, the initial iteration is far more modest, with no immediate plans to overhaul the 911 call system. For now, the administration will focus on expanding the B-HEARD programme, which sends mental health workers to 911 calls involving emotional distress. A recent audit found that programme has languished due to lack of funding and support.
The mayor cited the police shooting of Jabez Chakraborty, a Queens man whose family called 911 because he was acting erratically, as an example of an encounter that could benefit from a mental health response. “Officers have to handle 200,000 mental health calls a year,” Mamdani said. “That is not a system that is working. Today marks the end of it.”
Critics, including Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, have accused Mamdani of underestimating the complexities of the dispatch system. At a City Council hearing, Tisch estimated that only about 2% of calls could be removed from police jurisdiction, noting that “you need to send the police when there’s a call for a violent person.”
The Office of Community Safety will also house existing programmes focused on reducing shootings through violence interrupters, combating hate crimes, and supporting victims of sexual assault. It will be led by Renita Francois, who previously oversaw former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to reduce violence in public housing. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams urged patience, warning that “there will be some mistakes — that happens in the police department, too.”
