Jabez Chakraborty was shot four times by an NYPD officer on the morning of Jan. 26 in an encounter that lasted all of 16 seconds.
But it’s the days and weeks leading up to the tragic incident that the Chakraborty family is replaying now, as Jabez lies in a hospital bed recovering from gunshot wounds and charged with first degree attempted assault for advancing toward police with a kitchen knife.
After Jabez drank bleach in mid-December in an attempted suicide, the Chakrabortys turned to one city institution after another seeking assistance for their son, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia three years ago — all while trying to avoid police involvement, which they knew could lead to fatal consequences.
Instead of calling 911, which all but guarantees cops will show up, they tried calling the city’s 988 mental health line, one that triggers a strictly non-police response.
They tried to get him placed in long-term, inpatient psychiatric treatment at a city hospital — only to be turned away,
They tried to get him in an intensive daily treatment program but were put on a waiting list.
“We did everything we were told to do,” the family said in a statement to THE CITY.
“We reached out for mental health help because we wanted medical professionals — not police — to respond. We tried to follow the system the way it’s supposed to work, but instead we were sent through delays and bureaucratic hurdles that ended with our son being shot in our own home. We were asking for care. We never imagined it would lead to this.”
Jabez Chakraborty poses in an undated photo. Credit: Courtesy of Chakraborty Family
Incidents that result in police using force against someone in the midst of a mental health crisis usually unspool the same way: cops confront a subject wielding a weapon who refuses to put it down. The scenario escalates quickly, often in a matter of seconds.
In the past 10 years, 24 individuals in crisis have either been shot or tased to death, while two more have been critically injured (including Chakraborty) by the NYPD. The mayoral administrations of Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams both wrestled with this issue, and reducing the odds of further incidents is a key feature of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s promised Department of Community Safety.
To avoid these tragic tableaus, advocates for people with severe mental illness have long emphasized that trained health care workers — not cops — should handle these situations. But year after year, dispatchers route the vast majority of 911 mental health calls to cops because of the perceived potential for violence. THE CITY recently found that 86% of these calls resulted in an NYPD interaction.
Since 2022, families have been encouraged to call 988 instead of 911, but the system is understaffed and not designed to handle emergency situations where a loved one has become a danger. All too often, even when family members go through heroic efforts to avoid it, the road leads to 911 — and then to armed cops.
Such was the case with the Chakraborty family of Jamaica, Queens.
Their son, Jabez, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 20 and continued to live at home with his family, struggling to find work or attend classes.
Sometimes individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia refuse to take prescribed medication, but Jabez, the family says, did not resist treatment. He attended monthly therapy sessions, saw a psychiatrist monthly and dutifully followed his medication regimen.
In mid-December, however, they learned that he’d become increasingly depressed. That’s when he attempted suicide by drinking bleach. And that’s when they decided to call 988.
Jabez’s sister, Naomi, made the call on Dec. 17. She was on the phone for 32 minutes, explaining the bleach incident and requesting that a non-police “mobile crisis team” be dispatched to the family home to assess the situation.
Jabez Chakraborty poses with his sister, Naomi, in an undated photo. Credit: Courtesy of Chakraborty Family
The team did not show up until two days later, the family says, and then they did not enter the family home. Standing outside they asked Jabez a series of basic questions about his mental state such as “Do you hear voices?” and “Are you okay?”
They left without transporting him to a hospital.
The city’s description of mobile crisis teams states the teams “may direct police/EMS to take a person to an emergency room against their will only if they have a mental illness and are a danger to themselves or others” and that teams are supposed to attempt to respond to calls “generally within several hours of receiving the referral.”
Families are advised to instead call 911 if a person is “expressing thoughts of suicide with plan, intent and preparatory behavior.”
That day after the crisis team left, the family had a previously scheduled call to speak with Jabez’s psychiatrist at Long Island Jewish Hospital, who advised them to call 911 and request an involuntary transport by ambulance to take Jabez there.
The family did as instructed, but two cops — not an ambulance — showed up. The family asked them to take Jabez to LIJ, but the cops said it was too far and they took him instead to the city-run Queens Hospital.
At the hospital, the family says they had to wait 14 hours before Jabez was assigned a bed. The family says Jabez told staff that he sometimes hears voices and speaks back to them. And they say they were told he would qualify for longer-term, inpatient treatment to fully analyze his condition and find the right balance of medication and treatment.
Instead, the family says the hospital discharged him after just three days because, they were told, the hospital was understaffed as Christmas approached.
Stephanie Buhle, a spokesperson for the city Health & Hospitals Corp. said medical privacy laws prevent the agency from responding to questions about a specific patient, including whether drinking bleach should automatically trigger transport to a psychiatric emergency room.
She emphasized that a hospital’s decision about admitting a patient for a longer-term stay is “based on a clinical assessment that the patient’s mental illness warrants the care and treatment provided on an inpatient psychiatric unit.”
“Similarly, discharges are also based on ongoing clinical assessments and appropriateness of discharge options,” Buhle said. “At any time, patients can petition the court for release when involuntarily admitted at the hospital. While families can request a longer stay, the decision is made by the clinical team and only when clinically warranted,” she added.
The city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which operates the mobile crisis teams, also declined to discuss the response time regarding a specific patient.
After Jabez returned home, the family sought a more intensive daily treatment program at Zucker Hillside/Northwell Hospital in Glen Oaks, Queens, on the Long Island border. The hospital has an early treatment program that specializes in helping young people experiencing symptoms of psychosis for the first time. By late January, he was on a waiting list to get in.
Then on the morning of Jan. 26, Jabez had a psychotic break. He became angry and began smashing glasses against the wall. The family says they do not know what triggered the outburst. His sister, Naomi, called 911.
She told the dispatcher that Jabez had thrown glasses at the wall but not at any person, that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and that she wanted an ambulance to perform an “involuntary transfer” to a hospital. The dispatcher told her that would require the police to be present.
The family says Jabez calmed down while they waited for first responders to show up and sat down to eat his breakfast. Then at 10:02 a.m., officers Tyree White and Justin Allen arrived and rang the front door bell.
His mother, Juli, answered the door and escorted the cops inside. As they stood in the living room, White’s body camera footage shows Jabez in the kitchen, turning and spotting the cops. He immediately reaches into a drawer and pulls out a large kitchen knife. His face displays no emotion, and he says nothing as he begins advancing towards the cops.
His mother tries to hold him back, and both cops begin repeatedly yelling, “Put down the knife!” They back out of the living room into a front foyer and close a glass door behind them before Jabez pushes through the door, still holding the knife.
Officer White then shoots him four times, and Jabez reels back and falls backward onto a couch. The entire encounter, from the time the officers entered the living room to when Officer White shot Jabez, took 16 seconds.
The next day the Zucker Hillside program notified the family Jabez had been accepted into the daily treatment program. But it was too late.
Late on Friday, Feb. 13, Jabez was arraigned in the wood-paneled courtroom of Queens Supreme Justice Jessica Earle-Gargan on one count of first degree attempted assault. He appeared in court via video from his bed at Jamaica Hospital, where he is recovering from gunshot wounds to his stomach and groin while shackled to his bed. His mother, father, sister and other family members and friends sat in the back of the courtroom, their eyes mostly fixed on Jabez’s image on the screen.
They saw Jabez breaking into tears in his hospital bed several times as the hearing progressed.
Prosecutors for Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz argued that Jabez should be held without bail, while his Legal Aid lawyers requested supervised release on, if necessary, $10,000 bail. Judge Earle-Gargan set bail at $50,000.
At one point, one of Jabez’s attorneys, Shanaz Chowdhury, described the family’s efforts to try and avoid a police interaction.
“The city,” she said, “has failed a family that has tried to make every right move.”
On Friday, Jabez celebrated his 23rd birthday. He is no longer shackled to his bed.
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