New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his administration on Tuesday will release police body-camera footage of an NYPD shooting of a Queens man whose family said they called 911 requesting an ambulance because he was in emotional distress.
The mayor's announcement follows public criticism of his initial comments on the Jan. 26, 2026 incident in Briarwood, including from the family and their supporters. Mamdani said in a statement in the hours after the shooting that police responding to an emergency call had "encountered an individual wielding a knife," and that he was "grateful to the first responders who put themselves on the line each day to keep our communities safe."
NYPD officials said Jabez Chakraborty, 22, had advanced on officers with a kitchen knife after they told him repeatedly to drop it and tried to de-escalate the situation. Officials said one of the officers fired several times and struck Chakraborty, who was then taken to Jamaica Hospital.
A spokesperson for the family said Chakraborty was on a ventilator last week and had undergone multiple surgeries after being shot at least four times. The family had asked for emergency medical workers, not police, to respond to the incident, according to the spokesperson.
Mamdani said on Tuesday that he visited Chakraborty and spoke with his family over the weekend. The mayor said the NYPD was still investigating the incident and his administration was expediting the release of the officers' body-camera footage, which he said he had viewed.
“It is clear to me that what Jabez needs is mental health treatment, not criminal prosecution from a district attorney,” Mamdani said at a news conference. He said Chakraborty has long had schizophrenia.
“A lot of this is exactly the focus of the conversations that we're having internally in developing out this Department of Community Safety,” the mayor added, referring to his proposal for a new city agency dedicated to addressing mental health and homelessness. “A person experiencing a mental health episode does not always have to be served first or exclusively by a police officer. It is important for us to have all of the options available.”
An NYPD spokesperson said Tuesday that the department as standard practice always releases body-camera footage of any shootings by officers. He said the NYPD decided to expedite the release of the footage in this case to provide “full transparency.”
Chakraborty’s family member who called 911 requested an involuntary removal and was notified that such responses typically involve both police and emergency medical workers, according to the NYPD spokesperson.
He said the administration's release on Tuesday would include tape of that call, and the body-camera footage would show the officers did not draw their guns until Chakraborty grabbed the knife. The spokesperson also said the footage shows the officers attempted to separate themselves from Chakraborty by closing a glass vestibule door that he eventually pushed through.
Mamdani campaigned on creating a city agency to handle more calls involving mental health and homelessness issues with clinicians instead of police. Several police shootings this year have renewed attention to his proposal and raised questions about how the prospective agency would work.
A spokesperson for the Queens district attorney’s office declined to comment on the case, citing the ongoing investigation.
This story has been updated with additional information.
