During his 2025 campaign run, Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with a member of Guns Down Life Up, who had previously been hospitalized at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx following an incident of gun violence.
“At that moment, the only thing on his mind was retaliation,” Mamdani told BK Reader.
Intervention by Guns Down Life Up, a local crisis management organization, connected the victim with support for challenges including housing instability and unemployment. He now works for the organization, helping prevent retaliation and support others in the community
“To me, that’s a microcosm of what this can look like at a city level,” Mamdani said. “Seeing us investing more in the very young people that oftentimes are the victims of these kinds of crimes.”
On Oct. 20, alongside Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Renita Francois and the Office of Community Safety, the Mamdani Administration did just that.
Elected officials announced that Bushwick, Harlem and Washington Heights/Inwood each will receive $1.6 million in city funding. The three neighborhoods will bring the number of crisis management service areas operating across New York City to 49, up from the current 46.
Crown Heights, Brownsville and East New York have seen the largest reductions in crime in Brooklyn since Crisis Management Systems have been introduced in those areas, according to Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.
Citywide, those systems are associated with an estimated 21 percent reduction in gun violence since their implementation in 2013.
At the announcement, elected officials discussed how data collection has shaped the city’s approach to violence prevention. Mamdani said spikes in gun violence are not random, but follow patterns similar to the spread of diseases and epidemics.
“It was an issue in public health,” Mamdani said. “And like an epidemic, the best treatment was one rooted in prevention. One that would interrupt transmission and target violence at its source. One led by community members themselves.”
Deputy Mayor Francois said the three additional neighborhoods were selected based on local data, gaps in existing services and whether organizations in those communities had the capacity to build teams to carry out the work.
Bushwick organization The Wick Against Violence will receive $1.6 million of the $4.8 million in expansion funding.
Operated by Southside United HDFC, the organization hosts support groups and community events while deploying a team of local residents to engage with community members and other stakeholders.
The expansion comes after the April 2026 killing of 7-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore in Bushwick, who was struck by a stray bullet. According to News12, police said the man who fired the bullet is known to be a “gang associate.”
“The Wick Against Violence will work to ensure that such a painful tragedy never occurs in Bushwick again,” Mamdani said.
During the Oct. 20 announcement, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams emphasized that while law enforcement is important for accountability measures in some cases, reductions in crime will not come from law enforcement alone.
For example, there was no correlation between the number of stop-and-frisks and reduction in crime, Williams told BK Reader. At one point, police stopped more Black men than lived in the city of New York, meaning each individual on average was stopped more than one time.
On a national level, the United States is home to 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population.
“We should be one of the safest populations, but we’re not,” Williams told BK Reader. “Even though [law enforcement] can’t do it alone, they have all the funding.”
Going forward, Williams said efforts need to be a combination of investment in mental health infrastructure, pilot programs and staffing for community safety.
“I’m tired of turning on the news and seeing people who look like me dying and people who look like my mother mourning,” Williams said during the funding announcement. “We are very, very good at punishment. We are not very good at prevention.”
