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Zohran Mamdani wants dispatchers to screen 911 calls before police response
Mamdani requires ‘reorganizing’ the NYPD 911 response
Throughout a mayoral debate Wednesday evening, front-runner Zohran Mamdani stated he would reorganize the NYPD and depend on dispatchers to find out if there was any indication of violence.
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Socialist New York Metropolis mayoral candidate and Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani stated he needs to vary the way in which police within the metropolis reply to 911 calls, giving dispatchers extra discretion earlier than sending police to reply to requires assist.
Throughout a mayoral debate final evening hosted by Spectrum Information New York 1, Mamdani stated he would reorganize the NYPD and depend on dispatchers to find out if there was any indication of violence. He claimed that this method has been confirmed to work ‘elsewhere within the nation’.
“That is in all probability the worst concept I’ve heard of in a very long time,” stated Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct professor of prison justice at Penn State Lehigh Valley.
“I do not know what he is speaking about, and neither does he,” he added. ‘My query is: what occurs if the coordinator is improper and somebody dies? Is it an oops? The legal responsibility the town would tackle with this concept can be off the charts.”
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New York Metropolis mayoral candidate State Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) speaks to supporters throughout an election evening rally at The Greats of Craft LIC on June 24, 2025, within the Lengthy Island Metropolis borough of New York Metropolis’s Queens borough. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs)
Mamdani has supported changing law enforcement officials with social staff and “transit ambassadors” on sure 911 calls.
If it has been carried out elsewhere, Giacalone questioned the place it was, what occurred and the way that metropolis’s inhabitants in comparison with that of the Huge Apple.
“That is NYC, not Sheboygan,” he stated.
Sheboygan is a metropolis in Wisconsin on Lake Michigan with roughly 50,000 residents. New York has greater than 8 million.
Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani (R), Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa (L) and unbiased candidate and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo take part within the second New York Metropolis Mayoral Debate on the LaGuardia Performing Arts Middle at LaGuardia Neighborhood Faculty in Lengthy Island Metropolis, Queens, New York, on October 22 2025. (Hiroko MASUIKE / POOL / AFP)
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Mamdani’s marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to emailed questions in regards to the proposal.
“Zohran Mamdani’s plan to shift the duty over the telephone to find out whether or not or not a police response is required for a 911 name involving an emotionally disturbed particular person is reckless and harmful,” stated John Macari, retired NYPD lieutenant and podcast host of “Best Unfiltered.” “This proposal is not going to save lives or scale back the workload of regulation enforcement; it’s going to make their jobs harder and endanger residents, dispatchers and first responders alike.”
He stated anybody who has had expertise responding to calls involving emotionally disturbed individuals is aware of they’re each “unpredictable and unstable.”
“I’ve personally responded to lots of of them over my profession, and I can inform you firsthand that nobody can safely assess the risk stage of an emotionally disturbed particular person over the telephone,” he advised Fox Information Digital.
A police officer’s NYPD shoulder patch. (Susan Watts/New York Each day Information/Tribune Information Service through Getty Photographs)
He stated that below the stress of creating the improper choice, dispatchers may doubtless err on the aspect of warning and ship police anyway.
“Mamdani’s concept just isn’t a plan, it’s a speaking level,” he stated. “It seems it was drafted with none session with dispatchers, first responders or the households of individuals fighting psychological sickness. If applied, it’s going to value lives and additional pressure a system already stretched to its limits.”
Macari, who’s backing Republican Curtis Sliwa within the race, added that he believes Mamdani’s major victory over Andrew Cuomo was the results of voters rejecting the previous governor, quite than broad assist for his agenda.
Mamdani, who insisted this yr that he wouldn’t defund the NYPD if elected mayor, has beforehand known as for doing so and breaking down the division.
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‘Defund it. Dismantle it. Finish the cycle of violence,” he wrote on X in December 2020, complaining about NYPD time beyond regulation and calling the division “evil and corrupt.”
Earlier than that, he claimed the division is “racist, anti-queer and a serious risk to public security.” He has additionally known as for cash to be taken from the NYPD finances and spent on homeless companies.
“Collectively we are able to tax the wealthy, heal the sick, home the poor, dismantle the police, and construct a socialist New York,” he wrote.
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Giacalone stated that whereas Mamdani’s rhetoric might have modified, he nonetheless views him as a “defund the police” candidate.
“Because the saying goes, when somebody reveals you who they’re, imagine them the primary time,” he stated. “He is a defund the police, abolish the police candidate. Plain and easy. Once more, the individuals who vote for a candidate like this do not dwell within the crime areas the place issues will worsen.”