Look at the numbers. In 2016, the New York City Police Department logged 4,087 use-of-force incidents. By 2025, that figure ballooned to 12,348. That is a massive jump in physical force, firearms deployments, and taser usage, happening while overall city crime rates actually dropped.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani just ordered a sweeping review of the NYPD's use of force. It is the first comprehensive look at department tactics in ten years.
Critics will tell you this is a knee-jerk political reaction to recent protests or a specific federal immigration enforcement incident in the Bronx. City hall officials maintain the review was already in motion. Either way, the pressure from progressive lawmakers and community organizers is real, loud, and impossible to ignore.
Cracking Open Accountability Gaps
Police accountability in America's largest police force has long felt like an uphill battle. Too often, officers accused of severe misconduct manage to retire right before disciplinary trials wrap up.
Take the tragic 2024 shooting death of 19-year-old Win Rozario during a mental health crisis call. The officer involved retired cleanly before any internal tribunal could issue a ruling. Mamdani's new package aims to plug that exact loophole with a fresh notification system designed to lock down disciplinary hearings prior to retirement paperwork clearing.
Furthermore—scratch that word, we don't use those here.
On top of the review, the city is pumping an extra 2.6 million dollars into the Office of the Inspector General. That office investigates NYPD policies and misconduct independently. It is a necessary cash injection for an oversight body that has historically been stretched thin.
The Strategic Response Group Clash
Tensions between city hall and progressive groups center heavily on the Strategic Response Group. This rapid-response unit handles protests, major events, and civil unrest.
Earlier this month, seventeen state-level politicians and candidates signed a public letter demanding the unit be disbanded. The flashpoint? A chaotic October 8 operation in Marble Hill where an ICE officer shot 28-year-old Oscar Belgal inside an SUV while his five-year-old son sat in the backseat.
Demonstrations erupted immediately. Local political figures claimed police escalated street violence aggressively. Some reported being shoved to the ground or nearly struck by unmarked law enforcement vehicles amid the chaos.
Mamdani condemned the shooting outright and demanded Belgal's release from federal custody. Yet, balancing activist demands with institutional realities remains messy.
The Political Highwire Act
Let's address the elephant in the room. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch was originally appointed by Mamdani's predecessor, Eric Adams. Reports indicate that New York State Governor Kathy Hochul made retaining Tisch a non-negotiable condition for her mayoral endorsement during the election cycle.
Progressive politicians want Tisch gone. They point to rising use-of-force statistics as direct evidence of a department culture that resists reform. Mamdani faces a delicate balancing act. He must satisfy a progressive base that elected him to shake up municipal policing, while managing fragile relationships with state power brokers who prefer institutional continuity.
Changing the largest police force in America is never clean. Orders and reviews are easy to sign on paper. Changing daily street-level culture, officer incentives, and accountability enforcement requires persistent pressure.
The review is underway. Watch how the department responds when the findings drop.
