New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani tapped several prominent faces to join his transition team, and one of them is Alex Vitale, the anti-cop professor who wrote “End the Police” for the Community Safety Committee.
“I am excited to announce that I have been asked to join the Mamdani Transition Team to work on community safety issues. A new era for NYC,” Vitale said in a post on X.
However, according to the New York Post, Vitale has long argued against broken-windows policing — claiming the NYPD has a history of disproportionately and unjustifiably targeting minority communities.
Alex S. Vitale is Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
In response to one of X’s users asking him if he would work to protect Jews who go to their place of worship, Vitale replied, “Of course. My family is Jewish.”
“Are you pushing the end of police work like the book you wrote?” another user asked.
One X user said, “The best thing about you is that we already know your philosophies don’t work, so it’s like seeing the future.” Can you give us any predictions/stats you will achieve?”
According to his profile on the official website, he has spent the last 30 years writing about the police and consults for both police departments and international human rights organizations.
Along with ‘The End of Policing’, he is also the author of City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. He is also a frequent essayist for several publications.
His profile on brooklyn.edu says he teaches courses in criminology, sociology of law, social movements and political sociology. His research interests include community policing, policing of demonstrations and civil unrest, urban politics and economics, and social movements.
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg report said former partner Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Margaret Anadu and developer Jed Walentas are among those tapped to help move it to City Hall.
The newly elected mayor also addressed Kathy Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City.
Anadu and Wylde will serve on the Economic and Workforce Development Committee.
While Walentas joins the Housing Committee.
“These committees bring together more than 400 esteemed leaders from across New York — with backgrounds spanning local and state government, nonprofits, labor, academia, business and more — united in their commitment to ensure the Mamdani administration is staffed with top talent and ready to deliver on the mayor-elect’s affordability agenda on day one,” the statement said.
On Jan. 1, Mamdani will take the helm as New York’s 111th mayor.
Last week, Mamdani met Donald Trump at the White House and held a very productive meeting, after which the US president said he would help the New York mayor-elect.
“The better he does, the happier I am. We’re going to help him fulfill everyone’s dream. To have a strong and very safe New York,” Trump said.
