Social workers responding to 911 calls. What could possibly go wrong? For the last few years, politicians and “experts” have been insisting that social workers responding to 911 calls will be a net positive in ensuring better public safety while resolving fraught situations without needing police force. Mamdani campaigned on that very thing. 

Social workers and other non-police professionals like “transit ambassadors” should handle certain 911 calls to ease NYPD workloads and improve officer retention, New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani said Monday.

Mamdani’s position on law enforcement and public safety took center stage following a mass shooting in Manhattan on July 28 that killed four people, including a police officer. In light of the tragic shooting, Mamdani’s critics began slamming him for past remarks about defunding the police in New York City.

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“I’ve said time and time again that every decision I make with regards to the NYPD will work backwards from an outcome of public safety and that public safety, we know, it is one that also comes from listening to officers themselves,” Mamdani said Monday.

According to Mamdani, the reason why social workers are needed is because of the escalating numbers of mental health calls and that police are being forced to work overtime. 

He’s been touting this program as one that will improve public safety and free up police to respond to the more necessary calls, and let social workers handle the domestic violence calls. 

“If somebody is surviving, going through domestic violence – there are so many different, different situations that would far better be handled by people trained to deal with those specific situations as opposed to an individual with a gun who has received quite a limited amount of training in general,” Mamdani said at the time.

What’s interesting is who is behind this grand plan for having social workers respond to domestic violence calls with zero police presence. 

Zohran Mamdani’s latest hire to his incoming staff includes the mayor-elect’s long-time chief advisor, who has been dubbed the “chief architect” of Mamdani’s campaign proposal to have social workers respond to certain non-violent 911 calls in New York City.

The heavily criticized proposal was drummed up by the Ivy League-educated, California-native Elle Bisgaard-Church, a relative political newcomer affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Bisgaard-Church was tapped by Mamdani Monday to once again be his chief adviser while running the helm at New York City’s City Hall after serving in the same post during his campaign and during his state assembly days.

If anyone thought that the Democrat Socialist of America organization was going to be sidelined after Mamdani’s win, this news should absolutely put that to rest. 

Furthermore, there’s already a pilot program in place that Mamdani’s program, which is slated to cost $1 billion at the start, will be modeled on. Guess what? It’s a failure already.

B-HEARD launched in 2021 as a pilot program and only operates in some city neighborhoods, but a bleak audit conducted in May by the city comptroller found it was limping — with a whopping 60% of calls deemed ineligible while more than 35% of eligible calls from mental health professionals never got a response.

“Calls were considered potentially dangerous, were ineligible because a mental health professional was already at the scene, or were unable to be triaged because FDNY EMS did not take the call or all necessary information could not be collected about the person in distress,” the comptroller’s office wrote in a news release at the time.

Do you want to know why the program is already a failure? Because of how it is implemented. You have EMT’s and social workers responding to calls that are deemed non-violent. The program PROMISES to not deploy the teams to calls involving violence, subway issues (I’m sure that’s a comfort to those attacked or burned alive on the subways), or if it involves weapons. 

pic.twitter.com/AQPnreHh9e

— Magills (@magills_) October 23, 2025

Except, what happens when a team shows up and weapons are involved? What happens when the situation escalates instead of calming down? The teams do NOT have a trained police officer with them. SOOOO…if the situation escalates, they call for backup and then do what? Hightail it out of there?

Not only that, but their definition of a mental health crisis leaves a LOT to be desired. Law enforcement has no voice in the design and deployment of this program. Only FDNY EMS and NYC Health plus many of the hospitals. Yet, when a response fails because the situation escalates, what do the teams do? 

Call the police. 

Mamdani’s program is slated to cost NYC taxpayers $1 billion to start. Given how the pilot program is going, it will be a failure before it gets off the ground. 

Furthermore, I will note that is a miracle that no one (that we know of) has gotten injured or killed during the implementation of the pilot program, which only provides a minimal amount of training.  

Mandani's stupid ass social worker for mental health calls is 1 of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Go look at the cases, Sydney Wilson came out stabbing during a routine wellness check. He wants an unarmed social worker to deal with this pic.twitter.com/LD3wgJUvn2

— Sean Fitzgerald (Actual Justice Warrior) (@IamSean90) October 17, 2025

If a city isn’t safe, people leave and tourists don’t show up. Mamdani’s socialist ideas will see an increase in crime and an exodus of police.

Feature Photo Credit: 911 police car via iStock, cropped and modified