Brooklyn Council Member Chi Ossé was arrested early Wednesday at 212 Jefferson Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant while trying to stop what his office described as a deed theft eviction. The arrest came as supporters gathered for a rally backing a homeowner in a property dispute.
Ossé's office said he was taken into custody while defending his constituent, Carmella Charrington, from eviction. It said he was being held at the 79th Precinct and that at 10:57 a.m. it posted on Instagram urging Brooklyn residents to come to the station to press for his release and to support efforts aimed at stopping deed theft.
The arrest landed in a city where Ossé has made the issue one of his central fights. He represents District 36, which includes Bed-Stuy and North Crown Heights, and his office has been pushing for an eviction moratorium for homeowners facing deed theft. In March, he stood with Borough President Antonio Reynoso and others as they petitioned for help for Black and Brown homeowners in fast-gentrifying neighborhoods where property values are rising sharply.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the arrest “incredibly concerning,” and said Ossé has been “on the front lines” of the fight against deed theft. Council Speaker Julie Menin said she had seen video of a colleague being “aggressively pushed to the ground and arrested during a protest,” and said she was in touch with Ossé's team and the NYPD about getting him out “quickly and safely.”
The confrontation also sharpened the politics around a crime Ossé has described as one of the city’s most cruel. Deed theft is the illegal transfer of property ownership without a homeowner’s knowledge or consent, and his office said the dispute at 212 Jefferson Ave. is tied to that problem and to the displacement of Black homeowners in Bed-Stuy. Mamdani said deed theft is especially prevalent in Ossé’s district.
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the facts on the ground are already clear: Ossé has turned a long-running local fight into a public test of whether the city will move fast enough to keep Black homeowners from losing homes to fraud and eviction.
Ossé has framed the struggle in personal terms before, saying “not another Black homeowner should have their home stolen” and vowing to fight every day until deed theft ends. For now, the question is whether his arrest turns that warning into pressure for the city to act.