NYC Mayor-Elect's Transition Team Appointments Draw Scrutiny

THE BARE STORY

New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has appointed over 400 people to 17 transition committees tasked with making personnel and policy recommendations for his incoming administration. The appointments have drawn attention to the past statements and associations of several members. During his campaign, Mamdani apologized for his own past calls to "dismantle" the police and announced he would retain the current police commissioner.

Alex Vitale, an author who advocates for abolishing police, prisons, the FBI, ICE, and the DEA, was named as a "community safety" adviser. Mamdani's policy proposals include creating a new Department of Community Safety that would use "crisis responders" instead of police for mental health incidents.

Lumumba Bandele, appointed to the community organizing committee, has described himself as a "child of the Black liberation movement." According to one report, he has led campaigns to free individuals convicted of murdering police officers, referring to them as "political prisoners" and "soldiers that served valiantly."

Other appointees include Tamika Mallory, who was named to the Committee on Community Safety. Mallory, a former co-chair of the Women's March, departed the organization in 2019 after its founder wrote that the leadership had allowed anti-Semitism. According to reports, Mallory has praised Louis Farrakhan and, at one 2016 meeting, allegedly asserted that Jewish people were exploiters of other minorities. The Mamdani transition team did not respond to requests for comment mentioned in the source materials.