Mayor Adams to Appoint Andre T. Mitchell as NYC’s “Gun Violence Czar”

By Yehudit Garmaise

As fears of New York City’s violence heat up, Mayor Eric Adams is expected to appoint today Andre T. Mitchell to serve as the city’s “gun violence czar,” which is an unpaid position that focuses on violence prevention. 

Mitchell is the founder of a Brooklyn anti-violence group called Man Up!, which first launched in Philadelphia in 2011, before expanding to New Jersey and New York.

Man Up! seeks to prevent violence by providing summer camps, sports, music, arts, and employment opportunities.

One ManUp! NYC event “focuses on supporting and encouraging men to be better sons, fathers, and husbands by living out their faith and leading their families by example," a website says.

In 2019, however, the city’s Department of Investigations found that the financial records of Mitchell’s mentoring and community outreach group, which received millions of dollars in city contracts, raised significant red flags of fraud.  

At the time, The City reported that investigators discovered that Mitchell allegedly used money from the group for personal use and gave jobs to family members. 

Somehow, during the previous two years, more than $15,000 earned by an East New York coffee shop run by ManUp! wound up in Mitchell’s personal bank account, The City reported at the time.

Nonetheless, Mitchell is who Adams wants to put behind the title Gun Violence Czar.

After weeks of a scourge of shootings in NYC and several mass shootings nationwide, the mayor’s spokesman Fabien Levy said, “We will continue to roll out programs in the days, weeks, and months ahead to remove guns from our streets, protect our communities, and create a safe, prosperous, and just city for all New Yorkers.”