Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly sounded an alarm that every New Yorker who values safety should hear: Zohran Mamdani’s plan for a billion-dollar Department of Community Safety threatens to hollow out the police department that keeps our streets safe. Kelly warned that the money for the new bureaucracy won’t appear from thin air and that the practical effect will be shifting resources away from the NYPD, a move that could push officers to leave a city already short of patrols.
Mamdani’s proposal calls for a $1.1 billion civilian agency meant to send social workers and mental-health teams to many 911 calls instead of armed officers, folding existing programs into the new department and adding new funding lines to cover the rest. Campaign documents and reporting show about $605 million would be transferred from programs already in City Hall while the remaining $455 million would be new dollars Mamdani says can be found through efficiencies and revenue changes. Such a wholesale reorganization sounds noble on a campaign memo, but it is guaranteed to create gaps in front-line policing if the numbers don’t add up.
Conservative critics aren’t being alarmist when they say this plan will amount to defunding in practice: cutting overtime, redirecting communications budgets, and siphoning programs away from the NYPD all translate into fewer boots where they matter most — on neighborhood streets. Rank-and-file police have already warned that such shifts, combined with decades of personnel shortfalls, will drive experienced officers out and leave crime prevention understaffed. New Yorkers should not be fooled by slogans about “community safety” when the result is less policing where it’s needed.
Kelly and other former chiefs know how criminal enterprises exploit weakened enforcement, and they’re blunt about the consequences of this ideological experiment. Their practical concern isn’t anti-social spending; it’s that the DCS would absorb responsibilities now handled or supported by patrol officers without a reliable plan to replace the experience and deterrent that only sworn officers bring. That’s not reform — it’s a recipe for hollowed-out law enforcement and emboldened criminals.
Mamdani’s theoretical embrace of a public-health approach to violence was tested in the worst possible way on July 29, 2025, when a mass shooting killed an NYPD officer and others; critics seized on his measured, delayed response as evidence his public-safety instincts may not match the moment’s danger. New Yorkers remember when real violence demanded decisive leadership, not press releases about structural experiments; the city cannot afford missteps when lives are at stake.
The business community is also nervous, and for good reason: executives and investors already worry that weakened public safety and burdensome new taxes will drive jobs and families out of the city. When leaders talk about moving billions from enforcement to unproven programs, merchants, landlords, and employers legitimately wonder who will protect storefronts, subways, and neighborhoods — and where they should invest instead. The flight of capital and talent would be the predictable consequence of placing ideology over security.
Patriotic New Yorkers should stand with the men and women who put on the uniform and keep our families safe. We can support mental-health outreach and community programs without gutting the department that answers the most dangerous calls and deters violent crime. If Mamdani’s administration insists on reshuffling law enforcement, voters and civic leaders must demand concrete plans, guaranteed funding, and ironclad protections for the NYPD’s operational capacity — or face a city where safety is sacrificed for political ambition.
