On Friday, a little more than two weeks after 22-year-old New Yorker Jabez Chakraborty was shot in his family's Queens home by the NYPD as he lunged at officers with a knife while he was in the midst of a mental health crisis, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz charged Chakraborty with attempted assault in the first degree, a felony that, if found guilty, comes with a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. Chakraborty is also being charged with weapon possession.
Chakraborty's attorney pleaded not guilty on behalf of his client; Chakraborty himself participated via video, from the hospital where he is still recovering from his injuries. He didn't speak other than being asked if he could hear the proceedings.
Judge Jessica Earle-Gargan set cash bail at $50,000, or a $100,000 bond.
Chakraborty's mother, father uncle and other and supporters were in the courtroom watching from the back row.
"It is unconscionable and deeply disturbing that the district attorney's office is asking for remand in such a case," said his lawyer, the Legal Aid Society's Laura Eraso, in court on Friday. "He cannot stand he cannot walk. He's connected to tubes and drains that are currently keeping him alive."
Eraso described Chakraborty's struggles with mental health, which began three years ago when he was attending the New York City College of Technology. He had been seeing a psychiatrist at the time of the shooting, and Eraso said that the family was simply following their psychiatrist's instructions when they called for an ambulance.
But that's not who arrived.
"Within 30 seconds of entering the home Jabez is shot all over his body, multiple times at close range," Eraso said.
In setting the bond, Judge Earle-Gargan said her "heart goes out" to the family, but still did not believe the family's assurances of his return to court would suffice, despite the fact that Chakraborty is currently in the intensive care unit at Jamaica Hospital and has no prior criminal history.
At a press conference after Chakraborty's arraignment, his mother Juli Chakraborty said that her son "is being unjustly charged with a crime" and that Katz "must have no heart at all."
"DA Katz wants to put him in prison. Hasn't he suffered enough? Locking him up will destroy his life. All we want is for him to be able to heal," she said. "Why does she want to torture a young man who has already suffered so much? Our family is demanding that she drop these charges against Jabez and that he be unshackled as he recovers."
She added, "This is a nightmare. We didn't need police, we just needed medical transport. When we called 911 for an ambulance, we never could have imagined that we would end up here today. Jabez and our family were safe in our home until the NYPD arrived. Now Jabez is recovering from multiple surgeries, handcuffed to a hospital bed."