April 24 2026, 08:15 
Police in Brooklyn pulled gay New York City Council Member Chi Ossé (D) out of a chain of anti-eviction protestors who had their arms interlocked in front of brownstone residence buildings in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, on Wednesday. Officers then threw Ossé to the rainy sidewalk and handcuffed him from behind while onlookers recorded videos, begged officers to stop, and chanted, “Who do you serve?”
“I was manhandled by three men,” Ossé told reporters outside the precinct after his release on Thursday, according to Gothamist. “It takes a lot to lift me off the ground, but they were able to do so. They slammed me against the concrete… My face is sore, and I do feel a little loopy and dizzy.” He pledged to file a misconduct report against the officers who “slammed [him] on the ground.”
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Ossé and 30 protestors stood together to prevent officers from conducting an eviction after the city sheriff’s office and marshals went to a brownstone residence to issue an “eviction and mental health warrant.” The resident refused entry to the agents, who then called the police.
Ossé and four others were arrested. He now faces charges for allegedly obstructing government administration and disorderly conduct.
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The protestors claimed that the contested eviction resulted from “deed theft” (the transfer of a home’s deed to another person without the knowledge of the original owner) and is part of an ongoing campaign to remove Black and Latiné homeowners from the neighborhood (deed theft complaints have reportedly tripled over the last three years).
Resident Carmella Charrington said in court documents that the property has belonged to her family for over 60 years, but that a corporation (227 Group LLC) has also claimed ownership of the building and has tried to evict her for nearly the last two years.
The state attorney general’s office and a spokesperson for the property’s purchaser called the allegations a mischaracterization. The 227 Group LLC has not been formally accused of any wrongdoing; the corporation claims that it legally acquired the property from Charrington’s father through a court-ordered receivership, a legal process where a judge appoints a neutral third party (a receiver) to take control of a property in financial distress or amid litigation. The corporation added that Charrington’s eviction was ordered by a judge.
While a January 2026 deed shows that Charrington’s father transferred the property to her, another deed from 2024 shows that 227 Group LLC purchased the estate from a previous owner for $1.4 million.
Charrington was jailed at Rikers Island last week for contempt of court for not complying with eviction orders. Ossé said supporters had successfully raised funds to secure Charrington legal representation.
Ossé joined other elected local officials to send a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), urging her to issue a moratorium on evictions in deed theft cases, where a property’s partial owners force out people who legally own their homes.
“We witnessed a brutal police attack on a Council Member and community members defending a Black homeowner facing eviction through illegal deed theft,” fellow Democratic New York City Council Members Alexa Avilés, Tiffany Cabán, and Shahana Hanif wrote in a joint statement after Ossé’s arrest. “We again demand that Governor Hochul enact an eviction moratorium.”
Ossé, 28, is known as a progressive voice on the New York City Council and is an ally of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D). He was first elected in 2021 and was previously a prominent figure in the Black Lives Matter movement. Upon being seated, he focused his political capital on developing human-centered public safety solutions (such as community alternatives to police) and on creating innovative ways to combat the city’s housing crisis.
In November 2024, Ossé helped end the longstanding practice of apartment-seekers paying expensive broker fees. He did this by making social media videos that urged city residents to pressure their city council members to pass the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act. The law, which passed with a veto-proof majority last year, requires brokers’ fees to be paid by whoever hired the broker (usually landlords looking to promote their vacancies). Previously, apartment-seekers had to pay the fee, adding thousands of dollars to the already expensive relocation process.
A short history of Councilmember Ossé’s pro-LGBTQ+ actions
In June 2022, Ossé spoke out against anti-LGBTQ+ City Council Member Vickie Paladino (R), for repeatedly calling Drag Queen Story Hours an “unacceptable and grotesque” form of “child grooming and sexualization,” insinuating that LGBTQ+ people who interact with children are pedophiles.
“To insinuate that these performers are groomers, during the month of Pride at that, is wildly homophobic and bigoted,” Ossé wrote of Paladino. He also called her out for liking tweets of people calling him a groomer because he’s queer.
In 2023, Ossé was honored by LGBTQ Nation‘s sibling publication INTO as one of the “25 under 25” queer people to look out for. He swept the Democratic primary and general election and became the co-Chair of the Brooklyn Delegation and the Chair of the NYC Council Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations.
Ossé filed paperwork last November to run for Congress in New York’s Eighth Congressional District, which is currently represented by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
“The Democratic Party’s leadership is not only failing to effectively fight back against Donald Trump, they have also failed to deliver a vision that we can all believe in,” Ossé said in a statement upon filing the paperwork.
Last February, after the current presidential administration directed the National Park Service (NPS) to remove the LGBTQ+ Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, Ossé joined other councilmembers in writing a letter to the NPS, demanding the return of the flag, an explanation of why it was removed, and a notice of what steps NPS “will take to ensure that the Stonewall National Monument continues to reflect the truth of its history and the community it represents.”
The letter said that removing the flag “sends a deeply troubling message” that shows “we are willing to sanitize and erase our history and the very values that make America great.”
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