Ex-NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly on Sunday warned it would be a “tragedy of major proportions” if city voters elect socialist mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, who is “totally unqualified” for the office.
Kelly — the longest-serving police commissioner in Big Apple history with stints under Democratic Mayors Mike Bloomberg and David Dinkins — said he is especially worried Mamdani will gut the Police Department while trying to usher in “a whole list of wacky things.”
“It’s a tragedy of major proportions if Mamdani is elected mayor of the greatest city in the world,” Kelly said on WABC 770 AM’s the “Cats Roundtable” program.
“New York is the capital of capitalism, and to have someone who is so totally unqualified …
this man has basically not had a job,” he told Cats Roundtable host John Catsimatidis. “I’m very concerned about the future of New York if he gets elected.
“He has a whole list of wacky things that he wants to do,” Kelly said. “It’s just not worth the chance, a roll of the dice to have a socialist mayor in this, the greatest city in America.”
Kelly said he is convinced that Mamdani, currently a state assemblyman from Queens, will take resources from the NYPD, particularly mentioning the Democratic Socialist’s plan to create a separate Department of Community Safety to address the mentally ill and homeless people on the streets.
“My biggest concern is the Police Department and what he would do to the department. There is no question about it, that he would have to reduce the size of the Police Department,” Kelly said.
“He will reduce the department because he wants to start something bold [a new Department of Community Safety] … with no articulation as to what it means and what he’s going to do. But it does mean he’ll have to take resources from the Police Department to staff that organization,” the former top cop said.
Kelly said the NYPD is already hemorrhaging police officers retiring or exiting “at the highest rate” for “better climes.”
Kelly added that Mamdani’s fondness to push socialist programs is “just absurd.
“Who is he going to use for a model? Venezuela? Nicaragua?” the ex-NYPD chief said.
“He’ll just run out of other people‘s money. That’s what happens with socialism. It’s bound to happen in New York with an exodus of big numbers of people going to sunnier climes.
“It’s so hurtful to New York to try to assume that type of government, which is inevitable. That’s what the mayor will do. That’s what he preached his whole public life, short as it is,” Kelly, 83, said of Mamdani, 33.
A large turnout at the polls in November is needed to stop Mamdani, said Kelly, who is co-founder of the center-right group “Save Our City.
“Quality of life is key,” he said.
He also said current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who served under Kelly, has been “terrific” leading the NYPD.
The Mamdani campaign declined comment to The Post on Kelly’s barbs.
But during a WNYC radio interview last week, Mamdani tried to walk back his prior comments from 2020 slamming the NYPD as “racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety.”
Asked if he still stood by those remarks, Mamdani said, “No, I do not.”
Facing death threats, Mamdani now has an NYPD security detail protecting him, after he won the primary and became the Democratic mayoral nominee in the general election.
“And I made clear during the course of this campaign that the NYPD and police officers in general are critical partners in creating public safety for each and every New Yorker, each and every person who calls this city its home,” Mamdani told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer.
The pol said he wants to make it easier for officers to focus on serious crime by creating an office of community safety to deal with street people who are mentally ill or homeless, instead of having cops spend time doing social work.
Mamdani said his perception of policing changed after becoming a state assemblyman in 2021, as he worked alongside officers in the 114th Precinct in Astoria, Queens.
