admin
Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly pulled no punches this week, warning that Zohran Mamdani’s billion-dollar “Department of Community Safety” would gut the NYPD and leave the city less safe for hardworking New Yorkers. Kelly called Mamdani “totally unqualified” and labeled the prospect of his election “a tragedy of major proportions,” a blunt wake-up call that conservatives and centrists should not ignore.
Mamdani’s plan, which he and his advisors price at roughly $1.1 billion, would carve out a new civilian agency to handle mental-health crises, homelessness outreach and certain transit responses—functions that the NYPD currently absorbs. Proponents sell it as “prevention-first” and humane, but the practical effect is to shift millions in responsibilities and funding away from sworn officers.
According to the campaign’s own math, about $605 million would be transferred from existing programs into the new agency while roughly $455 million would come from so-called new funding or efficiencies—numbers that sound neat on a spreadsheet but threaten real operational budgets and overtime pools the NYPD relies on. This isn’t a harmless administrative shuffle; it’s a reallocation that will force choices between patrols, detective work, and life-saving response times.
Veteran law-enforcement leaders rightly point out that you can’t paper over violent crime and disorder with social programs alone, especially when those programs are untested at scale and understaffed. Kelly warns that demoralized officers will head for the exits if they see their budgets and missions hollowed out—an exodus that would leave neighborhoods vulnerable and taxpayers footing the bill for higher insurance and poorer quality of life.
Mamdani tries to calm nerves by saying he won’t “defund” the police and he even indicated he would keep Commissioner Jessica Tisch in place, but election-season rhetoric and policy details rarely match the chaos of implementation. Transferring responsibility for subway outreach, mental-health calls, and homelessness without a clear staffing and safety plan is a recipe for confusion—and for the NYPD to be blamed when the new system inevitably falters.
Conservatives who love this city must call out the naïveté and hubris of thinking a billion-dollar bureaucracy can replace trained, armed officers overnight. Public safety is not a social experiment; it is the bedrock of commerce, schools, and family life. We owe it to small-business owners, commuters, and parents to demand real accountability and evidence, not ideological theater dressed up as compassion.
New Yorkers should take Kelly’s warning seriously and pressure city leaders to produce transparent cost-benefit analyses, firm staffing plans, and guarantees that core policing capabilities will never be sacrificed to a political agenda. If Mamdani’s vision becomes policy without those guardrails, the people who pay the taxes and pick up the pieces—honest, working families—will bear the cost.
