He wants to 86 the 5-0.

A lefty academic who literally penned a book titled “The End of Policing” sits on Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team focused on public safety – along with a rag-tag roster of other anti-police reformers.

Alex Vitale, a Brooklyn College sociology professor, was among 26 advocates, scholars and former NYPD officials tapped Monday to staff Mamdani’s Committee on Community Safety amid the mayoral turnover.

But eagle-eyed Mamdani supporters and detractors noted Vitale’s appointment because he wrote a 2017 anti-cop book that decried “broken windows” policing and argued law enforcement reinforces entrenched racism and inequalities.

“The problem is policing itself,” Vitale wrote.

The second chapter of Vitale’s book is titled “The Police Are Not Here to Protect You.”

The appointment of Vitale, an avowed police abolitionist, fed into lingering fears that Mamdani – who spent the campaign walking back his past “defund the police” stance and disavowing tweets calling the NYPD “racist” — will push cop-hating policies as mayor.

Those doubts were blunted somewhat as Mamdani moved to keep tough-on-crime NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch in her job, but came back anew as Vitale was revealed to be on his transition team.

“I look forward to hearing his moderate defenders explain this one,” Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, posted on X.

“Just when a glimmer of centrist hope started to flicker, THIS,” replied Jim Walden, who mounted an unsuccessful independent mayoral run against Mamdani.

Mamdani has pushed to create a “Department of Community Safety” that will have social workers handle many public safety issues – an effort he argues will free up the NYPD to do more actual police work, rather than patch holes in the city’s failed social safety net.

Vitale lavished praise on the proposal in an October op-ed for “City & State,” calling the plan “well-grounded in existing best practices across the country.”

Whether Vitale’s role on the transition team will be focused on the new DCS or the NYPD is unclear. Both Mamdani’s camp and Vitale didn’t return requests for comment.

Vitale also has some kindred spirits on Mamdani’s community safety committee. Those are:

Diehard “defund the police” advocate Joo-Hyun Kang is the director for Communities United for Police Reform.

She has slammed police unions as an obstacle to reform.

“We would argue that the police unions as an institution, as well as the NYPD, because they’re not as separate as people say, have outsized political power,” Kang said in 2020.

Jose Lopez is a board member of Communities United for Police Reform, which has led campaigns against stop-and-frisk and the NYPD’s use of “broken windows” tactics.

He was named to former President Obama’s “Task Force on 21st Century Policing” and has long argued that police enforcement often exacerbates racism. In 2020, he slammed former Mayor Michael Bloomberg as an “extremist.”

“Contrary to his public relations campaign, Bloomberg was and continues to be a consistent supporter of extremist and discriminatory policing and social policies that increased structural racism in NYC,” he told The Appeal.

Rachlin helped create and push the Brownsville Safety Alliance “police‑alternative” zone, where community groups temporarily handled some low‑level issues with a limited NYPD presence. 

Police unions framed it as a dangerous “police‑free zone” experiment, while Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa called it “reckless.”

Prominent gun control activist Tamika Mallory ended up leaving her post at the Women’s March organization amid criticism of her association with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has a long history of antisemitic remarks.

Erica Ford is the founder of LIFE Camp, a Queens nonprofit that wants to end violence.

But she found herself in the spotlight after the Daily News reported in January that video showed her angrily swearing at cops serving a search warrant for three shooting suspects who had allegedly been inside her center.

“I am not interrupting s–t! Get the f–king police commissioner on the phone!” she shouted in a video, according to the Daily News.

But the transition’s community safety committee isn’t all anti-police crusaders. 

Former NYPD and Suffolk County police official Rodney Harrison is on the committee, as is the department’s former hate crimes chief Hassan Naveed.

Times Square Alliance president Tom Harris, who publicly supported Mayor Eric Adams’ push to expand involuntary mental health removals from public spaces, is also on the team.

The liberal professor is behind the 2017 anti-cop book — that decries “broken windows” and other proactive policies.

“The problem is not police training, police diversity, or police methods. The problem is the dramatic and unprecedented expansion and intensity of policing in the last 40 years, a fundamental shift in the role of police in society,” a description of the book reads.

“The problem is policing itself.”

Vitale has long argued against broken-windows policing — claiming the NYPD has disproportionately and unjustifiably targeted minority communities in the past.

In the wake of his appointment to Mamdani’s transition team, scores of critics suggested his anti-cop rhetoric would spell “disaster” for the Big Apple.

– Additional reporting by Emily Crane