Zohran Mamdani Appoints Prominent Police Abolitionist to His Transition Team

"He discussed his anti-cop views in an interview with Tangle News in 2021, saying police officers were violence workers who hurt their communities more than they helped. That's what distinguishes police from other government workers. It's that authorization and capacity to use violence, Vitale said. That's what undergirds police authority. It's that that's inherently dangerous and problematic for some democratic societies and that policing should always be the tool of absolute last resort."

"Policing, he added, has historically and in modern times been a way to reproduce inequality, primarily along lines of race as well as class and sometimes gender and sexuality. Vitale, who is a sociology professor at Brooklyn College, argued in his aforementioned 2017 book that the issue with cops is not their training, methods, or their diversity. He said, The problem is policing itself. He has called for taking funds earmarked for cops and funneling them into other services."

Zohran Mamdani added Alex Vitale to his community safety committee. Vitale characterized police officers as violence workers who harm communities more than they help and said policing is uniquely authorized to use violence. He stated that policing reproduces inequality across race, class, gender, and sexuality and argued that the problem is policing itself rather than training or diversity. Vitale has urged redirecting police funds into other services and increasing use of social workers for social problems. Other transition-team members have supported cutting NYPD funding, while Mamdani pledged to maintain a 35,000-officer NYPD headcount.

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