<p class="wp-block-paragraph">New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is initiating a comprehensive review of the New York City Police Department’s use-of-force policies following several high-profile incidents involving police and renewed calls for change from progressive groups.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“When the government uses force against a New Yorker, the standard for accountability must be at its highest,” Mamdani stated. “Every New Yorker deserves to know that force will be used lawfully, carefully and only when necessary.”</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The proposed reforms aim to prevent officers facing disciplinary charges from evading accountability by retiring before their cases are resolved, ensure compliance with state reporting requirements for police-involved deaths, and standardize how the department shares information with families after critical incidents. Additionally, the NYPD will submit personnel information to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services when officers retire with pending disciplinary charges, which may help prevent them from being hired by other New York law enforcement agencies.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">This review follows the retirement of an officer facing disciplinary charges related to the March 2024 fatal shooting of Win Rozario, a 19-year-old New Yorker shot by NYPD officers during a mental health crisis. The officer retired before a disciplinary trial could occur.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch acknowledged that the department failed to notify the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board during the officer’s retirement process, attributing it to human error and apologizing for the oversight.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Mamdani has faced increasing pressure from progressive factions regarding his decision to retain Tisch, a holdover from the previous administration, as police commissioner. Critics have also called for the disbanding of the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, an armed unit often deployed to protests.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Calls for change intensified following the nonfatal shooting of Oscar Belgal, an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during an attempted arrest. This incident has sparked backlash from Mamdani’s progressive supporters.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter has urged Tisch to end the department’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and has stated that she should be dismissed if she cannot address their concerns.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“We are disgusted by the NYPD’s response to ICE violence,” the New York City DSA chapter wrote.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“Tisch must end NYPD complicity with ICE and ensure that the NYPD is not used as a weapon against New Yorkers exercising their right to free speech, or as a shield for ICE’s unchecked violence,” the group added. “If the Commissioner cannot put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired.”</p>
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<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Darializa Avila Chevalier, a socialist who won her congressional primary with Mamdani’s endorsement and is expected to represent parts of Upper Manhattan and the Bronx next year, has also called for Tisch to resign.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group must be disbanded as quickly as possible, and Commissioner Tisch must step down,” Chevalier wrote.</p>