Start with a question that nobody in City Hall seems to be asking: if you hired someone specifically to stop gun violence, and they got pulled over with two illegal firearms under the driver’s seat — one with an obliterated serial number — what would happen?

If you work for a D.C. violence interruption program called Life Deeds, apparently nothing. Frank Johnson, 43, was working as a government-funded violence interrupter when D.C. Metro Police pulled him over in December 2023. They found the guns. Johnson — a convicted felon — was charged with felony unlawful possession. His employer kept operating.

That story made headlines for a week. Then the news cycle moved on. But for New Yorkers paying attention to where $192 million in city money has gone, and to why the next mayor just proposed spending another billion on an expanded version of the same concept, that story doesn’t end. It gets more relevant every day.

This article is about three things that belong together but rarely get discussed in the same breath: the national track record of violence interrupter programs, what New York City’s own crime data actually shows heading into 2026, and — because data without context is just noise — what a genuine personal safety plan looks like when police response times average 9 to 15 minutes for a crime in progress.

We’re going to go deep. Not because we want to frighten you, but because the alternative — the sanitized press conference version of public safety where record-low shooting numbers justify ignoring everything else — is doing real harm to real New Yorkers. You deserve the full picture.

The Violence Interrupter Model: Where the Money Goes and What We Get

The theory behind violence interruption programs is genuine. It comes from a real place. Credentialed criminologists helped design it. The basic premise: deploy people with street credibility — people who’ve lived in the world of gang violence, often including those with criminal records — as mediators who can intervene before a beef turns into a shooting. Treat violence like a disease. Break the cycle of retaliation.

That idea, developed in Chicago in the late 1990s under the name CeaseFire (now Cure Violence), spread to dozens of cities. New York adopted it in 2012. Washington D.C. funded it. Illinois poured money into it. The federal government blessed it with grants. Politicians loved the optics — redemption narratives, community-led solutions, alternatives to the “failed” war on crime.

And the results, if you look at what’s actually happened in the field rather than what the press releases say, range from unproven to actively dangerous.

The D.C. Collapse: Guns, Bribes, and Congressional Testimony

Washington D.C.’s experience with violence interruption programs has become one of the most thoroughly documented failures in recent urban policy history. The incidents aren’t isolated — they form a consistent pattern documented in court records, congressional testimony, and investigative reporting.

Frank Johnson and Life Deeds, December 2023. Johnson, 43, was actively employed as a violence interrupter for a D.C. program when Metro Police conducted a traffic stop. Under the driver’s seat of his BMW X6, officers found two firearms — one with the serial number obliterated, which is a separate federal felony in itself. Johnson, a convicted felon legally prohibited from possessing any firearm, was charged with felony unlawful possession. It was not his first firearms offense. His employer, Life Deeds, had been receiving public funding to deploy people exactly like Johnson to stop gun violence in D.C. neighborhoods.

Source: Washington Post reporting; NRA-ILA analysis, February 2026

The City Council bribery indictment. A sitting D.C. City Council member was indicted on federal bribery charges related to payments from a violence interruption organization. The government’s theory: that public officials were being paid to direct contracts and funding toward these programs, creating a financial ecosystem that benefited connected individuals far more than the neighborhoods the programs were supposed to protect.

Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. The D.C. situation drew Congressional scrutiny, culminating in formal testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. The assessment from expert witnesses was not subtle:

The same testimony noted that at the time of their arrests, at least half a dozen suspects charged with murder, gun crimes, drug distribution, and other violent offenses in D.C. were simultaneously on the payroll of violence interruption organizations. These weren’t background-check failures. This was a systemic pattern of organizations that, by design, recruit from criminal networks — without the oversight infrastructure to catch when those affiliations remain active.

Illinois, December 2025: The Police Chief Who Told Officers to Stand Down

If the D.C. cases could be dismissed as one bad city’s problems, what happened in Markham, Illinois in late 2025 makes that argument harder to sustain.

A man with a conviction for murder — a person legally barred from possessing any firearm for the rest of his life — was employed as a violence interrupter in the Chicago suburb of Markham. During a routine traffic stop, officers found a loaded pistol in his vehicle. Under normal circumstances, that’s an open-and-shut felony charge. Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The kind of case federal prosecutors take seriously.

Instead, Markham’s police chief personally intervened and ordered officers not to file charges before the case was reviewed by prosecutors. The officers complied. The man went home. The incident would have remained buried if the Illinois Attorney General’s Office hadn’t forced the city to release records under state open records laws months later.

Source: CWBChicago, December 2025

Read that sequence carefully. A convicted murderer. A loaded gun. A police chief who actively protected him from prosecution. And a system that kept it hidden until legal pressure forced disclosure.

New York’s Version: $192 Million and What We Actually Know

New York City’s Crisis Management System (CMS) has operated since 2012, grown to 41 service areas across the five boroughs, and spent over $192 million through fiscal year 2025. A 2025 report from the NYC Comptroller’s Office claimed CMS contributed to a 21% reduction in shootings in areas where it operated — roughly 1,567 fewer shootings over 12 years.

That claim deserves scrutiny the Comptroller’s Office itself acknowledged:

• The statistical problem: New York City’s crime fell dramatically over this period due to precision policing, demographic changes, and increased officer presence. Programs operating in those same areas will appear to reduce crime even if they had no independent effect. The Comptroller’s own statistical model cannot rule this out — and independent researchers have consistently identified this as the central methodological weakness in all violence interruption program evaluations nationally.
• Data gaps acknowledged: The same report found that “data gaps and inconsistent leadership” limited the ability to evaluate CMS effectiveness, even while claiming success. That combination — claiming credit while acknowledging the data is unreliable — should raise flags for anyone reading carefully.
• The reimbursement collapse: Organizations contracted to run CMS programs waited an average of 130 days to be reimbursed in 2016. By 2024, that had ballooned to 255 days — over eight months. Nonprofits are running programs on negative cash flow, often dipping into other funds or taking on debt to stay operational. A program with an 8-month payment lag isn’t a well-run public safety system. It’s a bureaucratic failure with a public safety branding.
• Coverage holes: CVM programs have essentially no presence in Harlem, Inwood, Washington Heights, and Longwood — all high-violence areas. Most NYPD precincts have no CVI program at all. The $192 million is being concentrated in specific geographic pockets while large portions of the city get nothing.

Source: NYC Comptroller’s Office, “The Cure for Crisis,” 2025

The Real NYC Crime Picture in 2026: What CompStat Actually Shows

Now let’s look at what’s happening on the ground in New York City, because understanding the violence interrupter debate requires understanding what the city’s actual crime situation looks like — not the press conference version, the full version.

The good news is real and it should be acknowledged before anything else: New York City recorded 688 shooting incidents in 2025, the lowest in the city’s history. That’s down 24% from 2024. Murders fell to 305 — below one per day for the first time since the pandemic disrupted everything. Subway crime hit its lowest level since 2009. Retail theft dropped 14%. Commissioner Jessica Tisch has run a disciplined department. Governor Hochul’s deployment of 750 additional overnight subway officers made a measurable difference. Precision policing works, and these numbers are its proof.

Here’s where it gets complicated:

Sources: NYPD CompStat Citywide Report, week ending Feb 15 2026; Mayor’s Management Report FY2025; Vital City, “The State of Crime in New York City: 2025 and Beyond,” Feb 21 2026

The murder number deserves a moment of honest translation. 305 murders in 2025 versus 319 in 2019 — the pre-COVID baseline everyone wants to return to. That difference is 14 lives. Fourteen families who didn’t go through the unimaginable. Those fourteen people matter completely. But the framing of this as a historic transformation obscures a harder truth: the city spent years above 400 murders, burned through pandemic disruption, and fought its way back to essentially where it was — not dramatically below it.

Meanwhile, the crime that shapes the daily experience of New Yorkers who aren’t murder victims — felony assault, meaning attacks causing serious physical injury or involving a weapon — has risen for six straight years to levels not seen since 1997. Nearly 30,000 attacks. They outnumber murders 97 to 1. And Vital City’s analysis published February 21, 2026 found that crime was actually ticking back up in November and December of 2025 compared to the same months in 2024 — raising the very real question of whether any of the positive trends survive the warm-weather months of 2026.

The 9-to-15-Minute Problem: NYPD Response Time Data Every New Yorker Needs

Here is the data point that changes how you think about personal safety in New York City. It comes directly from the NYPD’s own mandatory reporting — not from a political organization, not from a news outlet with an agenda, but from the city’s official Mayor’s Management Report published under Local Law 119, the Ariel Russo Response Time Reporting Act:

For “critical” crimes — the NYPD’s official category that includes shootings in progress, robberies, and burglaries — the FY2025 average was approximately 9 minutes and 13 seconds. For all crimes in progress, it was approximately 14 minutes and 53 seconds.

Let’s look at the full trend:

Sources: NYC Mayor’s Management Reports FY2021–FY2025; NYPD Police Benevolent Association statements; ABC7 NY Eyewitness Investigation, January 2025; NYC 911 End-to-End Reporting, Local Law 119; Sen. Hoylman-Sigal & Gridlock Sam analysis, Sept 2024

What 9 to 15 Minutes Actually Means

Numbers on a page don’t convey the physical reality of what these response times mean. Let’s be specific.

Why Response Times Are This Bad — and Getting Worse

Response times didn’t deteriorate because of laziness or poor management. They deteriorated because of arithmetic. NYPD headcount fell from approximately 36,000 officers in 2019 to around 33,200 in 2024 — the lowest since 1990 — while annual 911 call volume climbed toward 9 million calls per year. Fewer officers. More calls. Basic math produces worse response times.

The consequence showed up in overtime: the NYPD spent a record $1 billion on overtime in fiscal year 2024 as the department tried to maintain coverage with an understaffed force. That’s a billion dollars spent on burning out existing officers rather than hiring new ones.

Former Mayor Adams recognized this problem and proposed a structural fix: hire 5,000 additional officers to bring the force to 40,000 — a level sufficient to actually improve response times and reduce overtime. That plan died on January 1, 2026.

Mayor Mamdani’s Bet: What His Budget Says About Your Safety

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is smart and he’s committed to his vision. He’s also making a very specific set of bets with the safety of New York City’s residents, and those bets deserve scrutiny.

Sources: Gothamist Feb 21 2026; Fox News; The Center Square Feb 19 2026; Times of Israel Feb 19 2026

The $1.1 billion Department of Community Safety was supposed to be the answer — a civilian agency dispatching mental health responders to 911 calls, consolidating violence interruption programs, and “addressing root causes.” The problem: it has no funding in his own preliminary budget. That’s not a minor detail. That’s the centerpiece of his public safety platform not getting funded in the document that actually reflects his real priorities.

On the officer removal question, Mamdani has announced plans to pull NYPD officers from the city’s PATH mental health outreach teams operating in subway stations, replacing sworn officers with civilian transit ambassadors. The mental health professionals currently working on those teams — the people who do this work every day — have been direct about the danger. One behavioral nurse told Gothamist: “You can’t do this without police — it’s impossible. No one in their right mind would do this alone. You’re going to get hurt.”

Former NYPD Chief John Chell called the cancellation of the 5,000-officer expansion “a recipe for disaster.” The arithmetic here is not complicated: we know what response times look like at 33,200 officers (16-minute peaks). We know what they look like at 35,000 officers (14-minute averages). We can infer what they would look like at 40,000. Mamdani chose the middle number — and then cut $22 million on top of it.

Sources: Gothamist; The Center Square; Police1, “What NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani’s Public Safety Agenda Could Mean for NYPD,” Nov 2025

The Chicago Lesson: What Actually Reduces Violence

Defenders of violence interruption programs often point to Chicago, where violence fell in 2025 and where CVI programs have received massive investment — $175 million in state funding plus another $100 million from the business community. Surely this proves the model works?

The University of Chicago Crime Lab researchers who actually studied what drove Chicago’s 2025 crime reduction tell a different story. The primary factors were increased homicide clearance rates — 56% in 2024, the best since 2015 — and a tougher prosecutorial approach to repeat violent offenders. When you actually close murder cases and hold violent criminals accountable, violence falls. That’s the lesson Chicago’s data teaches.

Source: Crain’s Chicago Business, “Violence Fell to Historic Low in 2025,” January 2026

The lesson from city after city is consistent: when violent offenders face real consequences, violence declines. When they don’t, it doesn’t. Community programs can support that process around the edges — reentry support, job placement, mentorship for young people not yet in the cycle — but they cannot substitute for it. A convicted murderer with a loaded gun in his car is not going to decide not to shoot someone because his employer is a nonprofit with a community safety mission statement.

Building Your Personal Safety Plan: Practical, Legal, and Real

Everything up to this point has been data. This section is about what you actually do with it.

Because if there’s one thing this data makes clear, it’s that the gap between when a threat materializes and when help arrives is yours to manage. Nine to fifteen minutes is not a policy failure you can vote your way out of quickly. It’s a physical reality of geography and staffing that will persist through this administration and likely into the next. The question isn’t whether that gap exists. The question is whether you’ve thought about it.

Here’s a layered framework. You don’t have to implement all of it at once. But every layer you add meaningfully improves your position.

Layer 1: Situational Awareness — The Foundation of Everything

Situational awareness is not a tactical buzzword. It’s a skill — one that can be learned, practiced, and internalized — and it’s the single most cost-effective personal safety investment you can make because it costs nothing.

• Know your baseline. Every environment has a normal. Your building lobby, your subway platform, your parking lot. When something is off, your brain knows before you consciously register why. Trust that signal. The research on pre-attack indicators shows that victims of violence almost always report feeling that something was wrong before anything happened — and ignoring that feeling.
• The phone habit. A significant percentage of street robberies involve a victim looking at their phone. This is not coincidence. Predatory criminals select for distraction. Walking with your phone up, headphones in both ears, head down is a signal. Put the phone away on the street, especially at night and especially in transition zones — subway exits, parking structures, building entrances.
• Exit awareness. When you enter any space, spend 20 seconds identifying exits. This is not paranoia — it’s what first responders, security professionals, and military personnel do by default. In an emergency, the person who already knows where the exits are has a massive advantage over everyone else in the room.
• Recommended reading: Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear is the most practical, science-backed guide to threat assessment available to civilians. It’s been recommended by law enforcement professionals for decades. Read it.

Layer 2: Non-Lethal Tools — What’s Legal in New York

New York law gives you several options that don’t require a firearm or any special permit:

• Pepper spray (OC spray): Legal for New York residents 18 and older. Must be purchased from a licensed firearms dealer or pharmacist. Maximum size: 4 fluid ounces. Cannot be used offensively. This is effective, portable, inexpensive, and legal to carry in New York City. If you currently carry nothing else for personal protection, start here. SABRE, Fox Labs, and Defense Technology all make quality products widely available.
• Personal safety alarms: A 120+ decibel personal alarm attracts immediate attention, startles attackers, and signals distress to bystanders. They cost $10–$20. They work. Particularly valuable for women, seniors, and anyone who may have physical limitations. Keep one on your keychain — not in your bag where you’d need 45 seconds to find it.
• Door security devices: For your home, a door bar or wedge alarm placed under the door handle converts any standard door into a significantly harder target. A Buddybar door jammer or similar device costs under $50 and buys you time — time to call 911, time to get your family to an interior room, time for those 9 minutes to run.
• Home security systems: Modern systems (Ring Alarm, SimpliSafe, ADT) are affordable, professionally monitored if you choose, and serve as both deterrents and documentation. Motion-triggered cameras have solved crimes and exonerated innocent people. The deterrent effect alone is worth the cost — most residential burglaries are opportunistic, and visible cameras cause criminals to choose different targets.

Layer 3: Physical Training — Because Options Matter

Self-defense training is consistently underestimated as a safety investment. You don’t need to become a competitive fighter. A focused 8-to-12 week course in a civilian-oriented program builds three things that genuinely matter in a crisis: physical tools for worst-case close-range scenarios, the confidence that comes from knowing you have options, and the calm demeanor that communicates you are not a soft target. Most predatory violence is opportunistic. Attackers select for perceived vulnerability. Confidence and awareness are genuine deterrents — not just feel-good advice.

For realistic civilian self-defense, look at: Krav Maga (designed specifically for real-world threat scenarios), Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (extremely practical for ground situations), Muay Thai (striking fundamentals), or purpose-built civilian programs like those from the USCCA or similar organizations. NYC has no shortage of quality instruction.

Layer 4: Lawful Firearm Ownership — The Full Picture for New Yorkers

We’re going to address this directly, because firearm ownership is a constitutionally protected right and the decision to exercise it deserves honest information — not political filtering from either direction.

New York State’s Second Amendment rights are constrained by some of the most restrictive laws in the country. The SAFE Act limits magazine capacity. The carry permit process involves fingerprints, background checks, character references, in-person interviews, mandatory training hours, fees, and significant administrative delay. And after the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen struck down the state’s “proper cause” requirement, Albany responded with the Concealed Carry Improvement Act — creating an expansive list of “sensitive locations” where carry is prohibited even for permit holders. That law is currently being challenged in federal courts.

Here’s the current practical reality:

• Home defense: Lawful firearm ownership for home defense is legal in New York for qualified individuals. A properly secured handgun or shotgun, combined with professional training and safe storage, is a constitutionally protected option. New York State has safe storage requirements for households with minors — compliance is both legally required and simply the right practice.
• The carry permit process: Difficult, but not impossible. Since Bruen, the state can no longer require applicants to demonstrate a specific “special need” beyond the general right to self-defense. The process still involves extensive vetting and mandatory training, and the “sensitive locations” list is broad enough to make practical carry challenging even with a permit. Organizations like NYSAFE exist specifically to help New Yorkers understand and navigate this landscape.
• Training is non-negotiable: Firearm ownership without professional instruction is not a safety plan. It’s a liability. If you decide to own a firearm, invest in quality instruction. Train regularly. Know the law cold — both what you’re permitted to do and what you’re not.
• The constitutional foundation: The Second Amendment doesn’t exist because of hunting or sport shooting. It exists because the right of individuals to defend themselves is recognized as fundamental — not granted by government but protected from government infringement. In a city where police response times average 9 to 15 minutes and felony assaults just hit a 27-year high, that principle is not abstract. It is practical.

Layer 5: Preparation and Community

Personal safety is not only individual. It’s social and logistical, and the preparation that happens before an emergency determines what’s possible during one.

• Have a family communication plan — what you do if phones are down, where you meet, who you contact
• Keep emergency contacts printed and accessible, not only in your phone
• Know your building — exits, stairwells, which ones lock from the inside, where the fire extinguishers are
• Maintain a basic first aid kit and — given EMS response time data above — seriously consider CPR certification
• Know your neighbors. Know which ones are home during the day. Know who you can call at 2am. Community relationships are a genuine safety asset and they’re free
• Stay current on your neighborhood’s crime patterns — NYPD’s CompStat resources are publicly available and precinct-specific

Second Amendment Rights in New York: The Legal Landscape in 2026

The legal battle over Second Amendment rights in New York is active, consequential, and worth understanding even if you don’t currently own a firearm.

The 2022 Supreme Court ruling in Bruen was a landmark. The Court held that the right to bear arms in public for self-defense is protected by the Second Amendment and that states cannot require citizens to show a “special need” beyond the general right to self-defense to obtain a carry permit. It was the most significant expansion of Second Amendment jurisprudence since Heller in 2008.

New York’s response — the Concealed Carry Improvement Act — has been partially challenged and partially struck down. Federal courts have ruled that several of New York’s “sensitive location” restrictions are unconstitutional under Bruen. The state is appealing. The legal battle will likely reach the Supreme Court again. The direction of Second Circuit rulings has generally trended toward expanding the practical exercise of rights that Bruen recognized in theory.

None of this happens automatically. It happens because organizations fight for it in courtrooms, in Albany, and in the court of public opinion. Every New Yorker who believes in these rights — whether they currently own a firearm or not — has a stake in these fights and a reason to support the organizations waging them.

The Bottom Line: The Data Doesn’t Lie, and Neither Should the Conversation

Let’s end where an honest conversation about public safety has to end: with what the full body of evidence actually tells us.

New York City made genuine, significant progress on its most visible and most lethal form of violence in 2025. The officers who did that work deserve recognition without qualification. It happened because of precision policing, because of data-driven deployment, because of real investment in strategies that have proven track records. That’s worth saying plainly.

And it is also true — simultaneously, not as a contradiction — that violence interrupter programs have a national record of corruption, mismanagement, and the employment of active criminals that should concern every taxpayer regardless of political affiliation. That New York City’s felony assaults just hit a 27-year high. That total crime remains well above pre-pandemic levels. That NYPD response times to crimes in progress average 9 to 15 minutes and are structurally unlikely to improve under the current administration’s budget decisions. That the mayor just killed the only real plan to fix the staffing problem driving those response times.

And it is true that in those minutes between when a threat materializes and when help arrives, you are the variable. Not in a frightening way — in a clarifying way. Because clarity about what you can and cannot control is the foundation of every good decision. You cannot control how many officers the mayor hires. You cannot control where CVI programs are funded. You cannot compress NYPD response times through willpower.

You can control whether you’ve thought about the gap. Whether you’ve built the layers. Whether you have tools, training, and a plan. Whether you know your rights under New York law. Whether you support the organizations fighting to preserve and expand those rights.

That’s not a sales pitch. That’s the data, and what it asks of you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do violence interrupter programs actually work?

The evidence is contested at best. New York City’s own Comptroller report claimed a 21% shooting reduction in CMS-served areas but acknowledged data gaps and an inability to separate program effects from citywide policing trends. Testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee stated there is “almost no evidence of any efficacy” nationally. Multiple programs in D.C. and Illinois have faced documented cases of employees carrying illegal firearms, accepting bribes, or being arrested for violent crimes while on the public payroll. Community outreach programs can have value — but the specific “violence interrupter” model has serious evidentiary and accountability problems.

What is the current NYPD response time in New York City?

According to the NYC Mayor’s Management Report (FY2025), the average NYPD end-to-end response time for critical crimes in progress — shootings, robberies, burglaries — is approximately 9 minutes 13 seconds. For all crimes in progress, the average is approximately 14 minutes 53 seconds. These are official NYPD figures reported under Local Law 119. Response times peaked at 16:12 for all crimes in FY2024, the worst since the 1990s, according to the NYPD Police Benevolent Association.

Are felony assaults going up or down in NYC?

Up — for the sixth consecutive year. NYC felony assaults reached approximately 29,841 in 2025, the highest since 1997, according to Vital City’s February 2026 analysis of NYPD CompStat data. A felony assault under New York law means an attack that intentionally causes serious physical injury, involves a weapon or dangerous instrument, or targets a protected individual. Felony assaults outnumber murders in New York City at a ratio of 97 to 1.

Is pepper spray legal in New York City?

Yes. Pepper spray (OC spray) is legal in New York State for individuals 18 years of age and older. It must be purchased from a licensed firearms dealer or pharmacist, cannot exceed 4 fluid ounces, and must be used only for lawful self-defense. It is legal to carry in New York City and is widely recommended as a baseline personal protection tool.

How do I get a concealed carry permit in New York?

The process requires an application to your local licensing authority (NYPD in the five boroughs), extensive background investigation, character references, an in-person interview, mandatory firearms training, and payment of fees. Following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling, New York cannot require applicants to show “special need” beyond the general right to self-defense. However, the state’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act created broad “sensitive location” restrictions that limit where permit holders can carry. This legal landscape is actively being contested in federal courts. Contact NYSAFE for current guidance on the process and your rights.

How much has NYC spent on violence interrupter programs?

Over $192 million from fiscal year 2016 through 2025, through the Crisis Management System operating in 41 service areas across the five boroughs. Mayor Mamdani has proposed expanding this model significantly through a new $1.1 billion Department of Community Safety — though that funding did not appear in his preliminary FY2027 budget released in February 2026.

Sources & References

NYPD CompStat Citywide Report, week ending February 15, 2026 ·
NYC Mayor’s Management Reports FY2021–FY2025 ·
Vital City, “The State of Crime in New York City: 2025 and Beyond,” Feb 21, 2026 ·
NYC Comptroller’s Office, “The Cure for Crisis: Evaluating NYC’s Crisis Management System,” 2025 ·
NRA-ILA Analysis of Violence Interrupter Programs, February 2026 ·
Washington Post reporting on Frank Johnson / Life Deeds, December 2023 ·
CWBChicago, “Cops Found a Gun in a Convicted Murderer’s Car. Their Chief Ordered Them to Let Him Go,” December 2025 ·
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee testimony on violence interruption programs ·
Mayor’s Office press conference, January 6, 2026 (Commissioner Tisch / Mayor Mamdani / Gov. Hochul) ·
Gothamist, “Mamdani’s Preliminary Budget Holds NYPD Near $6.4B, Leaving Community Safety Agency Unfunded,” Feb 21, 2026 ·
The Center Square, “Mamdani Cancels Adams NYPD Expansion, Faces Backlash,” February 2026 ·
Times of Israel, “NYC’s New Mayor Proposes $22M NYPD Budget Cut,” February 2026 ·
ABC7 NY Eyewitness Investigative Report, “What’s Behind the Surge in 911 Response Times,” January 2025 ·
Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal & Sam Schwartz, “Speed Kills: NYC Traffic Congestion and Emergency Response Times,” September 2024 ·
NYPD Police Benevolent Association public statements on response times ·
The City NYC, crime analysis, February 21, 2026 ·
Crain’s Chicago Business, “Chicago Violence Fell to Historic Low in 2025,” January 2026 ·
Police1, “What NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani’s Public Safety Agenda Could Mean for NYPD,” November 2025 ·
NYSRPA v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) ·
New York Concealed Carry Improvement Act (2022) and subsequent federal court rulings

NYSAFE, Inc. | nysafeinc.com | Protecting the rights and safety of law-abiding New Yorkers.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing herein constitutes legal advice. New York State and New York City firearm laws are complex, subject to ongoing litigation, and change frequently. Consult current law and qualified legal counsel before making any decisions about firearm ownership, storage, or carry.