New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is catching heat for trying to play both sides of an officer-involved shooting — thanking the cops while also visiting the man they shot, who remains in critical condition.
NYPD officers responded to a Queens home on Jan. 26 after residents called 911 requesting an ambulance to involuntarily commit 22-year-old Jabez Chakraborty. Body camera footage and call records released by the department on YouTube show Chakraborty had thrown four pieces of glass at a wall before the call was made. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Anti-ICE Movement Paving Way For ‘Armed Militancy’ Among Leftists, Terrorism Analyst Warns)
When officers arrived, a civilian let them into the home, where Chakraborty confronted them with a knife and began advancing, according to the NYPD. Body camera footage shows officers drawing their weapons and backing up while repeatedly ordering Chakraborty to drop the knife. The civilian who let them in can be seen trying to physically stop Chakraborty from approaching.
One officer closed the door between himself and Chakraborty while continuing to order him to drop the knife. Chakraborty pushed through the door, still armed, and the officer fired four times.
The family maintains they requested an ambulance, not police. But footage of the 911 call shows a family member acknowledging that officers had previously instructed them to request an ambulance for involuntary transfers in similar situations — and that the dispatcher explicitly told them policy required both police and EMS to respond. The caller replied “OK.”
In a Friday statement shared by the activist group Desis Rising Up and Moving, the family dismissed the body camera release as “limited footage, with the NYPD’s biased narration.” A Wednesday statement called on Mamdani to create a system “where we can call for responders who are not police.”
The family also expressed frustration with the mayor directly, accusing him of “[applauding] the NYPD officers that shot our son,” and claiming police “threatened and lied to us, and kept us from seeing our son for over 24 hours.”
Mamdani, who was briefed the day of the shooting, thanked “the first responders who put themselves on the line each day to keep our communities safe.”
I’ve been briefed on an officer-involved shooting in Queens that occurred earlier today. The NYPD was responding to a 911 call, where they encountered an individual wielding a knife. The NYPD is assessing the situation, and we are committed to keeping New Yorkers informed as we…
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) January 26, 2026
Leftist accounts online criticized Mamdani for using the term “officer-involved shooting” at all.
“How was the officer involved, zohran?” asked the People’s City Council Los Angeles, a self-proclaimed “abolitionist” with over 90,000 followers on X.
The Justice Committee, a New York-based anti-police violence group, was more pointed: “Mamdani campaigned on removing the NYPD from mental health. Now, he’s applauding the cops after they shot a young person in his home in front of his family.”
Mamdani visited Chakraborty in the hospital and is now using the incident to promote his campaign promise to create a Department of Community Safety, which would dispatch social workers instead of police to mental health crises, according to City and State New York.
“This situation underscores just how urgently we need a different and more effective mental health response system,” he said at an unrelated press conference Tuesday.
But when asked how social workers would handle cases like Chakraborty’s — where the weapon was only drawn after responders arrived — Mamdani dodged. The question, he said, is “exactly the focus of the conversations that we’re having internally.”
