Attorneys for a man shot by the NYPD three years ago amid a mental health crisis say they’re “hopeful” Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration will take a more sympathetic look at his case against the city than ex-Mayor Eric Adams did.
Raul de la Cruz, who still has a bullet lodged in his body from the 2023 incident, filed a new suit in state court and appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals this week after a federal judge dismissed his case against the city.
His suit seeks monetary damages to pay for his medical care – he still has extensive physical disabilities and needs further surgery — and to alter the city’s policy for responding to calls made about mental health emergencies, nixing the current NYPD response and replacing it with a team of trained medical and mental health professionals.
However, Ruth Lowenkron, who represents de la Cruz, said she’s “optimistic” they won’t have to continue fighting over this in court, now that Mamdani, who’s expressed opposition to police violence and support for non-police responses to mental health emergencies, holds the mayor’s office. Lowenkron said she hopes he’d direct his administration to settle the case and enact the policy change the suit demands.
“Right now we have a mayor who has said one of his priorities is to tackle the crisis response mechanism,” said Lowenkron, an attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. “We are hopeful that this will be a case that the mayor understands to be one that shouldn’t be fought, but rather should lead to the results that we believe we both want to see.”
Lowenkron cited Mamdani’s new Office of Community Safety, which would reduce police involvement in responding to mental health emergencies, as something she said she’s “cautiously optimistic” about and demonstrates a shared goal between the two.
A spokesperson for Mamdani, however, declined to respond to questions on the case and whether the administration would engage in settlement talks. The spokesperson directed amNewYork Law to the city’s Law Department, which only said it “will review these pending matters.”
Lowenkron said her firm has spoken “generally” with the Mamdani administration about the issue of exchanging NYPD responses to community-based responses for mental health emergencies, but hadn’t discussed the specifics of this case with City Hall.
In terms of continuing to fight the case in court, Lowenkron said she believes the Manhattan federal judge who dismissed de la Cruz’s case last month erred in his judgment because he “mischaracterized” de la Cruz as a violent threat to officers during the encounter and primarily based his disagreement with her argument that the city’s NYPD emergency response program is discriminatory to those with mental health issues on one contentious ruling.
The judge described de la Cruz as an “erratic, uncooperative individual brandishing a knife,” and said that, as a result, the officers’ actions against him were justified. Lowenkron said she didn’t think that was a fair assessment of de la Cruz – the officers were the ones who escalated the situation, she said, and, despite being informed that de la Cruz only spoke Spanish, only sent English-speaking officers, making any help “impossible” from the start.
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
Lowenkron said she’s hopeful the federal appeals court will agree with her and reverse the ruling, which would allow the suit to proceed to trial, and that de la Cruz’s new suit in Bronx Supreme Court will move him closer to justice.
Whether that justice may come through a jury or a Mamdani administration decision to settle, however, remains to be seen.
