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Zohran Mamdani: “More than 40 New Yorkers have been killed on Rikers Island…”

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 42:01

The despair on Rikers island has been well known to many of us for quite some time, and yet it is despair that has only been heightened under this current mayoral administration. You know, you mentioned More than 40 New Yorkers have been killed on Rikers Island, five in the last two weeks. And the jail population of Rikers has increased since Eric Adams has come into office by more than 1,000 additional incarcerated new Yorkers. (42:01–42:06)

CLAIM

Asserts that over 40 New Yorkers have died on Rikers Island recently, with five deaths in the last two weeks.

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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“It costs the city more than $500,000 a year to keep someone on Rikers Island.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 46:46-46:52
“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.”
JUST IN: Zohran Mamdani Takes Questions At Columbia Journalism School & Vital City Event | Uploaded September 8, 2025 | 00:30-00:33
“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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“In Denver, they had a STAR program...crime went down by 34% over the period of a number of years.”
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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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“Today, if you call 911, you cannot actually order... a response that is not the police to any crisis... for a mental health crisis.”
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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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“I have spoken about, as it pertains to headcount, sustaining the number of officers that we have on the NYPD and trying to fight this crisis…”
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“Does the NYPD having a more than 80 person communications team deliver public safety? No, that relationship is minimal.”
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“It's been proven to be effective at reducing shootings by up to 40%, yet it's only in operation in, I think, 28 of the more than 70 police…”
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“We've talked about increasing funding by 275% as one part of the way in which we deliver public safety.”
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“The NYPD had a unit, the Demographics Unit, which was tasked with surveilling Muslim New Yorkers doing the most banal things.”
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“There have too often been instances where just identity in and of itself is the basis of suspicion and the basis of surveillance.”
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“Part of the reason I'm sitting before you as the Democratic nominee is because of an increase in Muslim voter turnout unlike anything we've…”
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“I've been critical of the Strategic Response Group, a group that was founded in the mid 2010s with the intent of being a counterterrorism…”
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“We've seen hate crimes continue across New York City.”
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“We have many schools where they will have a school safety agent, but they will not have a nurse. They will not have a social worker in that…”
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“The despair on Rikers island has been well known to many of us for quite some time, and yet it is despair that has only been heightened…”
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“The jail population of Rikers has increased since Eric Adams has come into office by more than 1,000 additional incarcerated New Yorkers.”
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“We can reduce that jail population to less than 4,000.”
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“The average stay on Rikers in the 90s was 50 days. Now it's more than 100.”
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“There are more than 1,500 people on Rikers who have been held there for more than a year.”
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“This administration has cut funding for much of those very services on Rikers Island.”
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“For New Yorkers who are released out of state jails, 40% immediately enter into New York City shelters.”
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“Fountain houses...have been proven to reduce hospitalization by up to 45%, increase employment rates by 50%, decrease loneliness by 56%, and…”
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“Mayor Adams put forward restrictions in an RFP that made it difficult for a smaller size clubhouse to even be possible.”
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“We do not need the National Guard here in New York City.”
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“No matter the context within which it is described, this has nothing to do with questions of crime and safety.”
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“A federal judge recently found in [California's] favor that the deployment was illegal.”
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“The governor's forceful pushback of [congestion pricing] is part of what allowed the time, the space, the oxygen for it to become an issue…”
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