- Zohran Mamdani said NYPD should not handle domestic violence cases in a 2020 podcast
- He suggested trained specialists should manage domestic violence instead of armed police
- NYPD recorded over 110,000 domestic violence cases in New York City in 2024 alone
An old podcast video in which New York Democratic mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani said the New York Police Department (NYPD) should not respond to domestic violence incidents has resurfaced. He, instead, suggested that people trained to deal with such specific situations be in charge.
The 33-year-old made the remarks during an episode of the Immigrantly podcast in July 2020, shortly after the killing of George Floyd.
“If somebody is jaywalking, if somebody is surviving, going through domestic violence, there are so many different, different situations that would be far better handled by people trained to deal with those specific situations, as opposed to an individual with a gun,” Mamdani said during the podcast.
Citing concerns of “escalation,” Mamdani questioned the efficacy and appropriateness of involving armed law enforcement in situations of domestic abuse.
The NYPD recorded more than 110,000 domestic violence cases in New York City in 2024 alone, highlighting the scale and severity of the issue.
The podcast appearance was reportedly recorded at a time when public discourse around police reform was at its peak, and Mamdani aligned himself with many progressive voices in calling for a reimagining of public safety infrastructure.
On the same podcast, he said, “We find so many people who are having a mental breakdown, or people who are just trying to sleep on the train, or people who are just suffering through something in their lives. And instead of receiving a helping hand, they were shot, they were Tased, they were killed.”
Mamdani, who was elected to the New York State Assembly later in 2020, has centred his current mayoral bid around transformative changes to public safety. Central to his campaign is a pledge to create a new Department of Community Safety, with a proposed $1 billion budget, to respond to mental health and other crises traditionally managed by police officers.
His policy brief outlines a shift towards “crisis responders” in such cases, although it stops short of defining the scenarios that fall under this new agency's jurisdiction.
Mamdani's campaign has also not offered clarification on whether domestic violence incidents will be excluded from police purview under his proposed system.
During the same Immigrantly episode, Mamdani criticised what he described as the NYPD's militarised presence in minority communities. He characterised their presence as akin to an “occupying force” and expressed full support for the movement to defund the police, which gained significant momentum within segments of the Democratic Party during the summer of 2020.
The emergence of Mamdani's 2020 comments comes just weeks after he secured a thumping victory in a crowded Democratic mayoral race, positioning him as a prominent contender in the upcoming election.
