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Zohran Mamdani: “In Denver, they had a STAR program...crime went down by 34%…”

Featuring: Zohran Mamdani, Democratic | Mayor of New York City

JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event

Published September 8, 2025 | Video Starts at 19:27

And I'll give you an example of how this could work. In Denver, they had a STAR program. This is a program that focuses on low level crime. And In Denver, they had a STAR program...crime went down by 34% over the period of a number of years. they had 12,000 clinical interactions. Of those, only 3% required a medical hold. I say this because oftentimes in this conversation around subway safety, in the conversation around mental health, there also comes a question of involuntary commitment. (19:27–19:40)

CLAIM

Asserts that Denver's STAR program reduced crime by 34%.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Zohran Mamdani

“Police Officers responding to 200,000 mental health calls a year.”
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“75% of commercial units... are vacant within the subway system.”
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“Rikers Island [is] the largest mental health facility in New York City, second largest in the country where 40% of all the population is…”
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“More than 40 New Yorkers have been killed on Rikers Island, five in the last two weeks.”
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“It costs the city more than $500,000 a year to keep someone on Rikers Island.”
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“The cost of an entire year's worth of service [at a fountain house] is $4,000. That is three days on Rikers Island.”
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“Eight of the 10 states that have the highest levels of crime in the country, which are Republican led.”
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“For every dollar [California has] spent on a lawsuit, they've won more than 33,000 in federal funding.”
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“No, we have not formed a transition committee as yet.”
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“Yes. I can tell you that the experience I have every day is reading an article about people that I've apparently promised a job to.”
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“This [Department of Community Safety] is a department that would have a budget of about $1 billion.”
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“My opinion is one that looks at the spike in crime across the country over the course of the pandemic and sees similar spikes regardless of…”
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“I think we've even seen with raise the age that there are fewer arrests of younger New Yorkers than there were prior to the implementation…”
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“About two thirds of the amount of money that was allotted still remains unspent in Albany.”
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“We can see that murders and shootings are down since 2019, and they are down even further since 2024.”
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“Major crimes are up 30% since 2019.”
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“Our plan to deploy teams of dedicated mental health outreach workers to the hundred subway stations with the highest levels of mental health…”
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“Response times have increased by 20% over the last few years, where now the average time is closer to 16 minutes.”
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“The city, under Mayor Adams's leadership, has simply refused to issue the permits that are now required by law.”
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“We have four or five thousand person waiting lists where a vendor will pay an intermediary $20,000 for the right to sell.”
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“In New York City, there were 35% of calls that Be Heard was eligible for. They did not respond to and the police responded to.”
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“We increase funding for [Be Heard] by about 150%.”
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“Cahoots in Oregon, a program that diverted 20% of calls that were coming into a police department.”
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“There would be no cuts to create this [Department of Community Safety].”
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“Raising the state's top corporate tax rate to match that of New Jersey...raising New York City's personal income tax rate on the top 1% by…”
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“Cahoots was able to resolve 24,000 calls, save for 311 without police assistance.”
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“In Philadelphia, they have a Hub for Hope program...connected more than 300 previously homeless individuals to housing.”
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“We had nearly the same number of vacant supportive housing units as we did homeless New Yorkers.”
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“Three of [the applicants] died waiting to hear back on their application.”
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“[Andrew Cuomo's] cutting of the Advantage plan... led to a skyrocketing of homelessness here in New York City.”
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“35% of calls that even after all of that were still determined eligible and still not taken up.”
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“I have actually found support for this vision of the dcs, of this idea of the removal of mental health crisis from the NYPD set of…”
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“I have supported that proposal [to abolish the NYPD gang database].”
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“A federal judge recently found in [California's] favor that the deployment was illegal.”
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