Authored by Tim O'Brien via PJMedia.com,

While snow and ice continue to wreak havoc in New York, while the homeless continue to live in deadly cold conditions on the street without the city’s safety net of warm shelter when the weather gets below freezing, and as the mayor himself warns residents of a dire fiscal crisis ahead, Zohran Mamdani found time this week to visit a man in the hospital who tried to kill a police officer with a knife. 

Police were forced to shoot Jabez Chakraborty on Jan. 26 after the man’s family called 911, wanting an ambulance to take the 22-year-old for treatment over some form of mental health crisis.

Reportedly, the caller made no mention of the possibility that Chakraborty might have a weapon. 

When police arrived on the scene, and a family member let them into the house, Chakraborty charged the officer with a large knife in his hand.

Body camera footage shows that as he retreated out of the front door, the officer had to shoot the man to neutralize the threat. 

At last report, Chakraborty was on a ventilator in the hospital, where on Monday he received a personal visit from the mayor. 

A day later, the mayor was hosting an unrelated press conference, but he made the point that Chakraborty’s attempt to kill a police officer “underscores just how urgently we need a different and more effective mental health response system,” which involves the creation of a new Department of Community Safety. 

Mamdani promised this, among many other things, when he ran for mayor, saying that such a department would complement and bolster New York’s other mental health response services. Part of this involves – you guessed it – dispatching social workers in response to some calls instead of police. 

Watch that video again and imagine if the city official who entered that door was an unarmed social worker. What do you think would have happened? Do you worry that Chakraborty might have scratched himself with the knife as he stabbed the unsuspecting city employee, and perhaps his family members? 

The city’s mayor would seem to have more concern over an armed, disturbed individual than his city’s own employees and the individual’s family members. Reports are that New York is interviewing and hiring staff for the new community safety department. The mayor has not indicated how many people will be hired or exactly how the department will be structured. 

On Tuesday, reporters asked Mamdani how the city would respond to a situation like Chakraborty’s once his new social worker-centric policies are implemented. 

He had no response other than to say, “A lot of this is exactly the focus of the conversations that we’re having internally in developing out this Department of Community Safety.” How can he propose such a radical alternative to current procedures without having a more concrete idea of how these types of situations will be addressed? 

The reason becomes obvious when you look back at his campaign and the promises he made, and when you compare all of that to every real-world situation he now has to face as mayor. Before he took office, it was all theoretical, all academic. Everything seemed so simple, and his solutions so right. 

During the campaign, when these policing issues came up, Mamdani referred to his 17-page white paper on the topic. 

The paper made a case to improve coordination among city offices that seek to prevent “gun violence,” homelessness, and mental health crises. Apparently, Mamdani felt that instead of getting to the root of actual problems, adding a layer of bureaucracy was the key. Some of these other offices include: the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, and the Office of Community Mental Health. At last word, these offices will soon fall under the umbrella of the new Department of Community Safety. 

To be sure, New York already had a non-police response program. It’s called B-HEARD. That’s an acronym for “Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division.” 

While running for office, Mamdani often mentioned B-HEARD as something he wanted to build around. The division uses EMTs/paramedics and mental health professionals in calls where 911 operators have not detected violence or an imminent threat. Mamdani’s vision has all the bells and whistles, including alternatives to prison. 

If you’re wondering how much all of this legacy and new bureaucracy might cost, estimates are that the department’s budget may exceed $1 billion. All of that, and Mamdani still doesn’t have a good answer for what happens when a social worker gets called to a location where a mentally unstable person could pick up a knife or a gun and attack. 

A lot can happen between the time a caller reaches out to 911 and the mental health professional gets on scene. At the same time, given the chaos and stress that define these types of situations, it’s very plausible that the caller may not even think to mention the existence of a weapon when there is one. 

Police will tell you that you shouldn’t need to be told a suspect has a weapon to be on your guard for whatever may unfold. Quite often, mentally deranged people who could become violent start out by screaming at family or people in public or by behaving very erratically. 

In Mamdani’s utopian vision, New York will bank on prevention of violence in the form of outreach to vulnerable populations in the city, the creation of volunteer safety patrols, and the use of conflict mediation and “de-escalation” approaches. 

If Mamdani’s vision were a college thesis, I’m sure some Columbia professor would give him an A. But it’s not. He’s in the real world now, and he’s already proven that some of his solutions can involve the risk of death. That’s of no matter. The people of New York were forewarned by Mamdani himself. There are no surprises here. 

The only thing we don’t know is whether Mamdani brought flowers with him when he went to the hospital to visit a man who tried to kill a cop.