The mother of a Queens man who was shot by police while wielding a knife during a mental health crisis continued her tearful plea on Wednesday for the Queens District Attorney to drop the criminal charges against him.
Photo by Dean Moses
The criminal case against Jabez Chakraborty, a 23-year-old man who was shot by cops while threatening them with a knife after his family called 911 to help him during a mental health crisis, will move forward, a Queens judge ruled Wednesday.
Judge Toni Cimino declined to dismiss an indictment charging Chakraborty with attempted assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Chakraborty wasn’t in court to hear that himself, however, as he remains hospitalized with a bullet still lodged in his body. He was shot four times by Officer Tyree White in his family’s Briarwood home on Jan. 25 while experiencing a psychotic break and walking toward White with a kitchen knife.
Chakraborty’s mother and over two dozen community members came to court in his place. They criticized the judge’s ruling, questioned the point of pursuing a case against someone hospitalized and in need of mental health care and urged Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz to drop the charges against him.
“Why do I have to be here when I could be with my son, recovering?” his mother, Juli Chakraborty, said through tears outside the courthouse. “Why is the Queen’s DA choosing to continue a case against my son while he is healing mentally and physically from multiple gunshot wounds by the NYPD?”
Katz’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 
Juli Chakraborty, the mother of Queens man shot by police and Fahd Ahmed, executive director of South Asian advocacy group DRUM, speak outside Queens Criminal Court Wednesday. Isabella Gallo
The Legal Aid Society represents Chakraborty. The group disagreed with the judge’s ruling but said it remained committed to providing him with “a zealous and unwavering defense.”
Legal Aid attorneys had argued that, because Chakraborty wasn’t allowed to testify or call witnesses in front of the grand jury indicting him, and was not provided a prompt arraignment, the indictment should have been thrown out.
Chakraborty’s family has said they called the police in January as a last resort after he experienced a psychotic break. They intended to request his involuntary transport to Long Island Jewish Hospital for mental health care, which they’d been trying to seek out through other avenues for months.
The family says they’d gone through city agency after city agency, including calling 988, the city’s mental health hotline and trying to get him treatment at an inpatient facility, as he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. They’d avoided calling 911 for help because they feared something like the scene that unfolded: Police responding violently instead of Chakraborty, who attempted to kill himself by drinking bleach in December, getting the help he needed.
After the officers entered the family’s home, Chakraborty, who had calmed down before police arrived, grabbed a kitchen knife and began walking toward the officers. While his family tried to restrain him, police shot him multiple times as they retreated. The 16-second incident was caught on the cops’ body camera footage.
Chakraborty was transported to Jamaica Hospital in Queens, where he was fingerprinted and shackled to a hospital bed for almost 10 days, despite there being no public charges or indictment against him, court filings say.
After a Legal Aid Society attorney stepped in and demanded the Queens DA show cause for restraining Chakraborty, the district attorney’s office said an indictment against him was filed under seal on Jan. 30. He appeared for his Feb. 13 arraignment from his hospital bed.
Fahd Ahmed, executive director of Desis Rising Up and Moving, a group representing South Asian New Yorkers, called the case against Chakraborty absurd.
“The presence of officers escalated the situation, and Jabez was shot multiple times,” Ahmed said after Wednesday’s proceedings. “All this was in the context of a mental health episode. What is the Queen’s DA trying to prove? Is she trying to say that people should not have mental health episodes, or is she trying to cover up for the NYPD and their rash behavior?”
Ahmed said he wanted the charges against Chakraborty dismissed, but he also wanted to see the city put forth solutions to the “larger systemic issues” around police and government response to mental health emergencies.
Chakraborty’s next court date is set for May 13.
If you or a loved one is at risk of suicide or self-harm, you can contact call or text 988, or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of resources.