{"id":163328,"date":"2026-03-14T15:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/163328\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T15:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:02:09","slug":"mayor-zohran-mamdani-so-far-keeping-nypd-policies-he-once-challenged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/163328\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani so far keeping NYPD policies he once challenged"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quietly, new Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood inside police headquarters behind the incumbent police commissioner, Jessica Tisch \u2014 one of the few top-level agency leaders he kept on<\/a> from the Adams administration \u2014 as she hailed NYPD policies he had long assailed as a candidate.<\/p>\n

Tisch, answering questions in their first joint news conference at headquarters<\/a>, praised the NYPD\u2019s gang database<\/a> as “a tool that has helped us.” Candidate Mamdani, in September, had\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0the database a “vast dragnet” that sometimes ensnares\u00a0minority youths with loose,\u00a0threadbare\u00a0or zero connections to gangs, because of\u00a0social media posts.<\/p>\n

Quality-of-life policing by the NYPD \u2014 some of which Mamdani has suggested would shift into a new $1.1 billion police-supplementing Department of Community Safety \u2014 is enforcement “New Yorkers were begging us for,” she added.<\/p>\n

Her remarks came after Mamdani insisted “we are fully aligned” that “we need to see genuine public safety across the city.”<\/p>\n

WHAT NEWSDAY FOUNDNew York City Mayor\u00a0Zohran Mamdani has maintained, at least so far, several controversial NYPD policies he once promised to change.Mamdani campaigned on a platform to transform municipal government but is facing the headwinds of governing an inert, complex bureaucracy with conflicting interests.The mayor has\u00a0insisted that he and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch\u00a0“are fully aligned” that “we need to see genuine public safety across the city.”Campaigned on transformation<\/p>\n

Mamdani included no money for\u00a0the Department of Community Safety in his proposed budget for the forthcoming fiscal year, which begins in a few months, although he is expected<\/a> to fund the department as the budget process proceeds.<\/p>\n

The remarks by Tisch\u00a0came on Day 6 of Mamdani\u2019s tenure, which began with an inaugural address in which he promised<\/a> to govern “expansively and audaciously.”<\/p>\n

Now in his third month as\u00a0mayor, Mamdani has maintained, at least so far, several controversial NYPD policies\u00a0that he once promised to change.<\/p>\n

Mamdani campaigned on a platform to transform municipal government. Now, he’s facing the headwinds of governing an inert, complex bureaucracy with conflicting interests and juggling tradeoffs with far-reaching and unexpected consequences.<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s something political scientists call path dependence, which is just a fancy way of saying that if there\u2019s a groove, things tend to keep going into that groove,” said Nicholas Tampio, a professor of political science at Fordham University. “There\u2019s a lot of moving pieces in city government, and so it\u2019s very hard to just move one piece, because the organism will adjust to keep things where they are.”<\/p>\n

Sam Raskin, a Mamdani spokesperson, suggested changes were coming “in the weeks ahead,”\u00a0although Raskin\u00a0wasn’t specific.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The Mamdani administration is committed to advancing meaningful public safety reforms that keep New Yorkers safe while strengthening trust in our institutions. That work is already underway, and we are continuing to move it forward in close collaboration with the NYPD and other partners,” Raskin said. “Our administration is focused on getting these reforms right, and the mayor will have more to share in the weeks ahead.”<\/p>\n

Collateral\u00a0consequences<\/p>\n

There are collateral consequences that must be considered when changing a policy, experts said.<\/p>\n

Take the controversy over how the police should\u00a0deal with cyclists who\u00a0of break\u00a0traffic laws.<\/p>\n

As a candidate, Mamdani said he would reverse a policy implemented last year<\/a> under Mayor Eric Adams and Tisch to issue criminal summonses \u2014\u00a0instead of the simple traffic tickets motor-vehicle drivers receive \u2014 to cyclists who speed, run a stop sign or commit other violations.<\/p>\n

Tisch\u2019s directive came after complaints that some cyclists, particularly reckless ones, ignore traffic tickets, and there\u2019s no meaningful way to compel compliance, since cyclists do not need to be licensed.<\/p>\n

Critics have argued that it\u2019s unfair to more harshly penalize cyclists, who are less dangerous than drivers, for identical law-breaking, and that issuing criminal summonses subjects those who are immigrants to potential deportation.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been clear that I don’t think it should be a criminal summons,” Mamdani told Newsday on Jan. 5, but he\u00a0would not<\/a>\u00a0say whether the policy was still in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For weeks afterward, he\u00a0refused to say whether the criminal summons policy still existed and did so only after reporters observed cyclists<\/a>\u00a0receiving summons and kept confronting him. More than a month after first being asked, Mamdani said the topic was the subject of “internal communications.”<\/p>\n

“We will have an update on that very soon as to what the new policy will be,” he said.<\/p>\n

His promise was made over a month ago.<\/p>\n

Campaigning versus\u00a0governing<\/p>\n

Another issue on which the poetry of campaigning has clashed with the prose of governing can be seen with the NYPD\u2019s Strategic Response Group, which Mamdani long criticized for abusive tactics when policing political protests; Tisch has said the unit is “really expert” in policing such protests.<\/p>\n

\"NYPD<\/p>\n

NYPD officers arrest immigration rights activists after a sit-in at the Hilton Garden Inn on Jan. 27 in New York City. (Getty Images) Credit: Getty Images\/Michael M. Santiago<\/p>\n

Last year, Mamdani said he wanted\u00a0to divide the SRG\u2019s duties policing protests and another key responsibility, combating unrest such as terrorist attacks. Last year, Mamdani posted the unit had\u00a0been sent out\u00a0“to harass + arrest” strikers, “has cost taxpayers millions in lawsuit settlements + brutalized countless New Yorkers exercising their first amendment rights.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the SRG was dispatched to disrupt an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest in Manhattan. Mamdani said he was briefed in advance that SRG would be used.<\/p>\n

And last month, Mamdani said<\/a>\u00a0“we are hard at work” figuring out how to split the duties in a manner that is “operational.”<\/p>\n

Adams has said he considers it dangerous to make the changes Mamdani wants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Citing recent\u00a0attacks<\/a>\u00a0outside\u00a0Gracie Mansion and another, a ramming of a synagogue<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday \u00a0in Michigan, Adams wrote in a message to Newsday: “I hope the Mayor finally recognizes the critical role the SRG plays in combating terrorism and protecting New Yorkers, and acknowledges that perhaps Eric Adams may have been right after all.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

It would not be tenable for Mamdani to follow the lead of President Donald Trump, experts said, who began to remake the federal government within weeks of taking office.<\/p>\n

To the delight of supporters and horror of critics, Trump has taken a more aggressive approach to wrangling the federal bureaucracy: Installing loyalists, gutting decades-old programs, functionally closing entire agencies \u2014\u00a0including\u00a0one Cabinet department \u2014\u00a0and getting rid of hundreds of thousands of employees.<\/p>\n

But actions by a mayor, such as in New York City, are felt far more immediately and deeply than what happens in Washington, D.C., at the federal level, says Kenn\u00a0Vance, an adjunct lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.<\/p>\n

“You hit them so fast that the people of the city, the constituency, can see those effects right away,” said Vance, who teaches about the city government and its future. “It\u2019s just harder to hide the real effects of what a wrecking ball is gonna do to programs people rely on.”<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/p>\n

\n\tMatthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quietly, new Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood inside police headquarters behind the incumbent police commissioner, Jessica Tisch \u2014 one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4275,1445,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-163328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-local-politics","tag-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}