‘Trying Times’: New York City Police Department Union Leaders Fear Mass Exodus as Zohran Mamdani Prepares To Take Office

The NYPD is already bleeding officers at a historic rate. This time last week, there were fears that if the “wrong person” were to be elected into office, the future of the NYPD — and the city’s public safety apparatus as a whole — would be “doomed.” Well, in the minds of many, the “wrong person” has been elected. Now the NYPD, along with the rest of the city, is holding its collective breath, as fears of mass resignations loom ahead of Mayor-Elect Zorhan Mamdani’s new administration, which takes office in January 2026.So far, rumors spreading across social media that NYPD officers have already started resigning en masse over Mr. Mamdani’s win are just that: rumors. On X on Wednesday, Sholdon Daniels, a Dallas-based Republican, claimed there was a “massive walkout at NYPD.” Conservative podcaster and former NYPD officer Zeek Arkham made similar allegations, posting on X that “every NYPD cop I’ve spoken to has told me they’re putting their papers in to leave.” A gubernatorial hopeful, Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, amplified those claims, using them as an opportunity to attack Governor Kathy Hochul’s “catastrophic endorsement of the Defund the Police, pro-Hamas Mayor.”A giant exodus , though, has not begun, yet. Sensational as it seems, it was fake news.“There has not been a spike in retirement filings in the past 72 hours,” an NYPD source tells the Sun.While the reports may have been false, the news for the NYPD is hardly good. The police department has been struggling with a worryingly high attrition rate. Since January 2024, the NYPD has lost nearly 5,250 rank-and-file officers at an average of more than 300 cops per month.The NYPD’s current uniformed headcount stands at 33,745 — far below the force’s peak staffing of 40,285 in 2000. The NYPD is budgeted for a 35,001 headcount, a number it hasn’t reached in five years, the New York Police Benevolent Association said. “I probably had about 740 detectives file for retirement this year. Usually they’re around 350,” NYPD Detective and Detectives’ Endowment Association President Scott Munro tells the Sun.“If Mayor-Elect Mamdani is serious about protecting this city, he must work with us to address the NYPD’s historic staffing crisis. The mass exodus of police officers didn’t begin on Tuesday night. It has been going on for years, and the time to fix it is now,” PBA President Patrick Hendry said in a statement.On the campaign trail, Mr. Mamdani told reporters he was “ensuring that we actually tackle the retention crisis at hand.” But Mr. Mamdani’s progressive vision for public safety, coupled with his history of troubling accusations about the NYPD, has given rank-and-file cops little confidence that staying in the job will be worth the stress. In a 2020 X post he accused it of being “racist,” “anti-queer,” and a “major threat to public safety.”In October, Mr. Mamdani went on Fox News to apologize to the NYPD for his previous statements.“I apologize because of the fact that I’m looking to work with these officers. And I know that these officers, these men and women who serve in the NYPD, they put their lives on the line every single day.”Weeks later, a video resurfaced showing Mr. Mamdani telling the 2023 Democratic Socialists of America convention that “when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by” the Israel Defense Forces. It was just one in a litany of criticisms he has made of the city agency he now needs to execute his alternative approach to law enforcement. Mr. Mamdani’s ideas for public safety include killing the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, which regularly responds to social protests, and giving the Civilian Complaint Review Board final authority on disciplining cops, a power historically held by the commissioner. So far, New York Fire Department Commissioner Robert Tucker, who is Jewish, resigned from his role the day after the progressive mayor’s election, reportedly over concerns about Mr. Mamdani’s anti-Israel ideology and approach to his new role.Mr. Mamdani hasn’t officially committed to keeping Jessica Tisch as NYPD commissioner. Ms. Tisch has privately signaled to confidants that she would work for Mr. Mamdani if he “allows her to keep pursuing her agenda,” Bloomberg reported. If Ms. Tisch were to leave, Mr. Mamdani has other candidates in mind for the role, including a former Suffolk County police commissioner, Rodney K. Harrison, and a former NYPD chief of strategic initiatives, Isa Abbrassi.Mr. Harrison has already come out in favor of Mr. Mamdani’s ambitious Department of Community Safety project, which aims to provide “prevention-first, community-based solutions” on issues like mental health, hate crimes, subway safety, and victim support.Mr. Mamdani believes cops should not be focused on repairing the city’s social safety net. Mr. Harrison supports sending mental health clinicians to non-violent situations, believing it will free up patrol officers to focus on more serious and violent crimes.Those in the NYPD are doubtful such a plan could work. While mental health professionals will be dispatched to these non-violent situations, they will still need an NYPD police presence to ensure the situation doesn’t escalate into something violent.“That’s just going to put other cops in jeopardy. They now have to worry about these people who aren’t trained to deal with these certain situations. If I’m a detective going to a domestic dispute, you’re telling me I’ve got to worry about somebody in my back pocket now so they don’t hurt? I just don’t see it happening,” Mr. Munro tells the Sun.Since January, the city experienced a 4 percent drop in most major crimes compared to the same period last year. This included a 17 percent drop in murders and, most notably, the lowest number of shooting incidents and shooting victims in recorded history. Outgoing mayor Eric Adams recently announced a new funding initiative that would increase the NYPD’s headcount to 40,000 by fiscal year 2029. Mr. Mamdani will inherit a city that is safer and a challenged NYPD that could have the resources to grow. He also has Ms. Tisch at the helm. The ball appears to be in his court whether or not he wants to keep it that way.“Right now, she has all the tools to keep crime down: funding, training, being able to hire police,” Mr. Munro tells the Sun. “These are trying times. I’m very concerned.”

‘Trying Times’: New York City Police Department Union Leaders Fear Mass Exodus as Zohran Mamdani Prepares To Take Office

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