NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) said Monday that the nation’s largest local police department will review its use-of-force policies, thrusting the city deeper into the nationwide debate over how law enforcement officials protect themselves and the public.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who vowed as a candidate to reform the New York Police Department, said the review will take place over the coming months and include input from city residents and community groups. It will mark the first time in a decade that the department, which has about 33,000 sworn officers, will evaluate use-of-force policies, which can include everything from tackling a subject to deploying chemical irritants or firing a weapon.
“When the government uses force against a New Yorker, the standard for accountability must be at its highest,” Mamdani said. “Every New Yorker deserves to know that force will be used lawfully, carefully and only when necessary. … This review is about making sure our policies reflect that responsibility, that our officers have the guidance and training they need.”
Mamdani’s announcement was met by swift condemnation from police union officials, who accused him of caving into pressure from left-wing allies. The discord reopens a debate that gripped communities nationwide in 2020 after police murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“The mayor’s radical base wants a wholesale dismantling of the NYPD, and it’s clear this announcement is an attempt to appease them,” said Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York. “It won’t work, and it won’t make New Yorkers any safer.”
Under current procedures, New York police officers are urged to use “de-escalation techniques to safely gain voluntarily compliance from a subject.” But force is permitted when “reasonable” to protect the officer, the public or “to prevent escape from custody.” Deadly force is permitted to protect an officer or the public from “imminent serious physical injury or death.”
Although violent crime is at historic lows in New York City, there have been several high-profile incidents in recent months in which officers used deadly force. In Manhattan in August, officers fatally shot a woman on a busy street who was holding two knives after she stabbed two people near Times Square. A few days later, officers shot and killed an apparently suicidal man on the Brooklyn Bridge who was armed with a knife and claimed to have a bomb.
As a candidate last year, Mamdani had pledged major reforms to the police department including expanding independent oversight, eliminating a specialized police unit that has been used for crowd control, and deleting a gang database that critics said unfairly targeted Black and Latino residents. Mamdani also promised to dispatch mental health crisis responders to some 911 calls.
Although Mamdani established an Office of Community Safety, budget constraints have so far limited its ability to carry out his full vision for placing mental health specialists on police calls.
More broadly, Mamdani has failed so far to carry out his major campaign promises for police reforms and has frustrated some liberal allies by keeping Jessica Tisch as police commissioner. Tisch, who was initially appointed by then-Mayor Eric Adams (D), has been closely associated with traditional forms of policing.
Mamdani said his decision to order the use-of-force review comes amid concerns that current police oversight procedures are not stringent enough. He noted an officer who shot a 19-year-old man during a mental health crisis in 2024 recently retired — allowing him to collect a pension — before he could face an internal disciplinary trial.
“We have this obligation to [the 19-year-old’s] family and every New Yorker who calls for help in a moment of crisis,” Mamdani said.
Police union officials said Mamdani’s decision is dangerous.
“New Yorkers should be worried,” said Scott Munro, president of the New York Detectives Endowment Association. “You cannot weaken morale, drive experienced detectives out and discourage new recruits while expecting public safety to improve.”
The criticisms illustrate the pressure Mamdani is facing on both sides of the political spectrum as he tries to navigate law enforcement issues in the nation’s most populous city.
Last week, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot and wounded a man here, his allies in the Democratic Socialists of America stepped up demands that he fire Tisch as police commissioner.
In addition to disagreeing with some of her policing priorities, the DSA has accused Tisch of not doing enough to separate the police department from ICE enforcement operations.
“If the Commissioner can’t put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired,” New York’s DSA chapter wrote on social media.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist and Democratic nominee for the 13th Congressional District, said a New York police officer shoved her to the ground during a protest against ICE on Thursday night.
“The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group must be disbanded as quickly as possible, and Commissioner Tisch must step down,” Avila-Chevalier wrote on X.
A Mamdani spokesman reiterated that “Tisch remains the police commissioner and there are no plans to change that.”
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