A member of the New York City Council was arrested in Brooklyn after protesting the eviction of a woman from her home in his district, according to his office.
Councilmember Chi Ossé was charged and taken into custody Wednesday after his office said he was trying to help a constituent who was at risk of losing the Bedford-Stuyvesant home she has lived in for six decades.
Ossé has been working to help Carmella Charrington reverse what she has said was an act of deed theft: Bad actors who duped her elderly father and stole the title to the Brooklyn building.
“This is a family property...And we were trying to explain this to the courts and let the courts know that whatever they did was illegal,” Charrington told NBC New York.
At some point during the protest, NYPD officers interacted with Ossé, and he was taken to the ground. The councilmember was arrested and faces two counts of disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration, police said. He was released later Wednesday afternoon.
“I was manhandled by three men. They slammed me against the concrete. I believe there was a knee on my back at some point,” Ossé said. “I was treated rough by the police officers, and I was just standing in front of the home.”
The councilman said he felt “a little spacey, my head hit the pavement pretty hard.” He later left in an ambulance to be examined. Four other people were also arrested in connection to the protest.
The NYPD said Ossé pushed past officers who attempted to stop him from blocking the entrance, and that an officer verbally engaged him before trying to arrest him. Police added that Ossé physically resisted attempts to take his hands and arms.
The department came under scrutiny for its handling of the situation, which began when Marshalls and the city sheriff called for police backup, saying protesters had made it impossible for them to complete a court ordered eviction signed by a judge.
Word of the arrest came as Mayor Zohran Mamdani was at an unrelated news conference in Queens. Mamdani said it was “incredibly concerning to hear” about what had occurred, and said his office would follow up on it.
During his campaign, Mamdani promised to make deed theft one of his top housing priorities.
“The councilman is rightly passionate about tackling the scourge of deed theft,” Mamdani said.
The mayor later posted on X that he had seen the video and that he had been in touch with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch regarding the arrest. Outside the precinct where Ossé was held in custody, City Council Speaker Julie Menin said she, too, had spoken with Tisch, and had requested his immediate release.
Ossé said he would file a misconduct complaint against the officers who pushed him to the ground. He and other councilmembers said more needs to be done to stop deed theft, which they say is up 300% in NYC and disproportionately targets senior citizens and communities of color.
“I went up to Albany two months ago after working with the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft, to pressure the governor to do right by the people of New York and do right by Black homeowners, and keeping them in their home. The governor bailed on our meeting,” said Ossé.
A source close to Gov. Kathy Hochul said Councilmember Ossé had been invited to attend a meeting in Albany with the governor’s housing team, but not with the governor herself. A spokesperson for Hochul said in a statement, “Council Member Ossé has been a strong advocate for his community, and the Governor is relieved he is out of custody. No New Yorker should be cheated out of the opportunity to keep their home.”
State officials denied that the property dispute is a case of deed theft, as Ossé and Charrington have claimed. The attorney general’s office said they “conducted a thorough review” in 2025, finding that it is a dispute “stemming from competing claims from the heirs and relatives of the property’s former co-owners.”
According to the attorney general’s office, Charrington and her sister petitioned a court for a conservator to be appointed to represent their father. That conservator then got approval from the court to sell the property, which was done in Jan. 2024.
The state attorney general’s office added that it does not have jurisdiction to intervene in such a legal dispute, but have met with Charrington to provide guidance and advice on the case.
