Mentally ill attacks will keep happening around our city without NYPD funding

Monday’s unprovoked knife attack in Times Square was “a tragedy that will not soon be forgotten,” says Tom Harris, head of the Times Square Alliance.Sadly, he’s probably mistaken.How well do New Yorkers remember April’s machete-slasher episode in Grand Central, or the stabbing of seven individuals in Penn Station in June?This city has a way of moving on from even the most horrific tragedies — and fast.Both of these incidents involved perpetrators with untreated serious mental illness, as did Monday’s.Getting these individuals adequate treatment is therefore imperative.Without it, NYPD officers are forced to step in to keep New Yorkers, and the mentally ill themselves, safe.City Hall certainly forgot all that last budget season.The fiscal year 2027 executive budget was published May 12, just 31 days after April’s incident, and five days after an unstable Bellevue Hospital-discharged psych patient allegedly pushed a 76-year-old fatally down subway steps.Yet the budget proposed no new funding for serious mental illness — and in Mayor Mamdani’s executive order creating the Office of Community Safety, serious mental illness is not mentioned.In June, within a month of the Penn Station stabbings, the city adopted its budget and kept the NYPD’s funding essentially flat.No officer headcount could be added, despite Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s hopes to hire 550 officers by year’s end.Multiple random attacks by people with untreated serious mental illness occurred, caused casualties — and were forgotten while the budget was being considered.That doesn’t inspire much confidence that Monday’s tragedy will be any different.It could be: One of the best ways for the city to address random violence is to fund the NYPD.NYPD officers are exceptionally good at responding to untreated serious mental illness.This week’s shooting was statistically rare: Officers respond to over 170,000 “emotionally disturbed person” calls annually, and police r...