Mamdani: Social workers, ‘transit ambassadors’ should replace cops on 911 calls

Social workers and other non-police professionals like “transit ambassadors” should handle certain 911 calls to ease NYPD workloads and improve officer retention, New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani said Monday.

Mamdani’s position on law enforcement and public safety took center stage following a mass shooting in Manhattan on July 28 that killed four people, including a police officer. In light of the tragic shooting, Mamdani’s critics began slamming him for past remarks about defunding the police in New York City. 

Mamdani was once again asked about his approach to crime and public safety Monday in a press conference with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., when he offered up his idea.

“I’ve said time and time again that every decision I make with regards to the NYPD will work backwards from an outcome of public safety and that public safety, we know, it is one that also comes from listening to officers themselves,” Mamdani said Monday. 

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The self-described socialist candidate went on to cite “forced overtime” as a leading cause for many New York City police officers’ decision to leave their jobs, noting that NYPD officers receive around 200,000 emergency calls pertaining to a mental health crisis every year. 

“The fact that every year we ask them to take on additional responsibilities – we are making it more and more difficult for them to respond to the very responsibilities that drew them to the job in the first place,” Mamdani argued. “New Yorkers rightfully have concerns around public safety, and I want to empower police officers to respond to serious crime and hire the mental health professionals to respond to mental health calls.”

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To explain the issue further, Mamdani pointed to a hypothetical incident involving a distressed tourist, arguing officers are forced to use resources to answer these calls, but that could end if the city were to hire a “transit ambassador.” 

“This forced overtime is something that we can expect. It’s not a surprise. It’s a requirement of so much of the asks that we are making of these officers,” Mamdani told reporters, in response to questions about his proposal to help reduce law enforcement overtime. 

“When we ensure that it’s not an officer who has to stand in the middle of the Times Square subway station and answer a question from a tourist about which exit works, and which escalator they can take, and what line is running with delays or without them, but that we actually have a transit ambassador such that that officer can focus on serious crime, it starts to reduce the kind of overtime that has ballooned.”

Meanwhile, during a podcast appearance in 2020, the same year Mamdani made his now infamous social media posts calling to defund the NYPD, the socialist candidate for mayor also suggested police should not be the ones responding to domestic violence calls. 

“If somebody is surviving, going through domestic violence – there are so many different, different situations that would far better be handled by people trained to deal with those specific situations as opposed to an individual with a gun who has received quite a limited amount of training in general,” Mamdani said at the time.

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In response to Mamdani’s calls to have social workers, not police officers, respond to certain 911 calls related to mental health crises, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, himself a former NYPD captain, called the idea “irresponsible” and “reckless.” 

“So when you put civilians in harm’s way to respond to a domestic violence incident, that’s irresponsible and it’s reckless,” Adams said while criticizing Mamdani’s public safety platform, according to CBS News. 

In Mamdani’s 17-page public safety plan released earlier this year amid his race to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for NYC mayor, he diverged from many of his primary opponents in that he did not envision hiring more officers to the force, according to the New York Times. Rather, per his plan, Mamdani would work to create a Department of Community Safety aimed at expanding mental health teams and other non-law enforcement personnel who can respond to certain 911 calls. 

Mamdani’s proposal also spoke to eliminating the NYPD’s overtime budget and its task force that is responsible for dealing with protests, according to The Times.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been a staunch critic of Mamdani’s approach to public safety and police, released his public safety platform on Monday, calling for increasing the number of officers on the NYPD’s force by about 5,000. 

Cuomo, who is running as an Independent after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic Party primary, also wants to increase officer pay and improve access to benefits and pensions for retired officers.