{"id":205465,"date":"2026-04-22T00:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T00:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205465\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T00:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T00:10:12","slug":"n-y-p-d-narcotics-unit-under-review-after-a-beating-is-caught-on-tape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205465\/","title":{"rendered":"N.Y.P.D. Narcotics Unit Under Review After a Beating Is Caught on Tape"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Police Department said on Tuesday that it was launching a three-month review of its narcotics division after two of its detectives were recorded brutally beating a man<\/a> they had mistakenly arrested during a drug sweep last week.<\/p>\n

As part of the review, the Police Department said it had disbanded the team responsible for the drug sweep, a small group within its narcotics unit in Brooklyn. That team was shut down on Friday, and its members have all been reassigned or placed on desk duty, the department said.<\/p>\n

The overhaul of the division was announced a week after videos showing two narcotics detectives punching, kicking and dragging a man across the floor of a Brooklyn liquor store spread online.<\/p>\n

The videos show the two detectives beating the man, a security guard named Timothy Brown, as they struggle to wrestle him into handcuffs for nearly eight minutes. The department said the arrest had been part of an undercover operation in the area and that the detectives had believed Mr. Brown to be involved in a drug deal. After beating and arresting Mr. Brown, the police determined that they had targeted the wrong man and that Mr. Brown had not been involved in the drug sale.<\/p>\n

The police charged Mr. Brown with resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration, but the Brooklyn District attorney\u2019s office said it would decline to prosecute the case.<\/p>\n

The footage, and news of the mistaken arrest, prompted immediate backlash from New York lawmakers<\/a>, civil libertarians and police critics, some of whom described the behavior as extrajudicial punishment. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been careful not to anger the city\u2019s police force, last week condemned the conduct in his strongest words of criticism since taking office. \u201cThe violence used by N.Y.P.D. officers in this video is extremely disturbing and unacceptable,\u201d Mr. Mamdani wrote in a post on social media<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Police Department moved quickly to discipline the two men in the video, Volkan Maden and Michael P. Algerio, both of whom have served with the N.Y.P.D. for more than a decade. On Wednesday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch called the videos \u201cdeeply disturbing\u201d and said that both detectives had been placed under investigation and stripped of their guns and shields.<\/p>\n

In the following days, the department removed the sergeant who oversaw Detectives Maden and Algerio from his post and placed him on modified duty. By Friday, six more detectives on the team, as well as the lieutenant and captain who oversaw the entire North Brooklyn narcotics operation, had all been reassigned.<\/p>\n

In interviews last week, several lawmakers praised Ms. Tisch and Mr. Mamdani for taking swift disciplinary action against what they called a shocking display of police brutality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis video looked like something from the 1990s,\u201d Oswald Feliz, the chair of the City Council\u2019s Public Safety committee, said. \u201cThis had nothing to do with public safety, it had everything to do with violence and that is violence that we will not and cannot accept.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for some, the behavior of the two veteran detectives raised concerns about how the unit and department was functioning.<\/p>\n

Some critics have pointed out that Detectives Maden and Algerio appear to use cellphones, rather than police radios, to call for backup. Others noted that neither appeared to be wearing, or using, body cameras during the arrest.<\/p>\n

Lincoln Restler, a city councilman who used to represent the Brooklyn district where the mistaken arrest happened, said the episode had concerned him enough to refer it to the city\u2019s Department of Investigation. In his referral, Mr. Restler requested that the agency examine the Police Department\u2019s communication practices for instances of unauthorized text and phone communication, according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times.<\/p>\n

In the city\u2019s policing community, reactions to the video have been more mixed. Union leaders and several former officers have chafed at the mayor\u2019s response, defending the behavior of the two detectives and saying that Mr. Brown had no right to resist arrest. (It is not clear from the video whether Mr. Brown was in fact resisting arrest or if he was unable to comply while being beaten.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what happens when City Hall rushes to judge based on a viral clip instead of facts,\u201d the detective union\u2019s president, Scott Munro<\/a>, said in a statement last week. \u201cIt\u2019s reckless. It\u2019s dangerous. And it\u2019s a failure of leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Police Department said on Tuesday that the 90-day review will aim to address and reform the kind of policy violations raised by Mr. Restler and others. It added that both detectives were being investigated by the department\u2019s Internal Affairs Bureau, which looks into reports of police misconduct.<\/p>\n

The review will be led by the chief of department, Michael J. LiPetri, and will examine the policies of the entire narcotics division to make sure that its officers are enforcing their duties \u201csafely and effectively,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n

As part of the process, the department will review the current training that narcotics detectives receive and will ensure that all officers in the unit use \u201cappropriate equipment.\u201d The department also said it would clarify its current policy to require detectives to use body cameras during drug operations.<\/p>\n

The department also said it will require commanding officers to regularly check in on the narcotics unit to ensure that it is meeting departmental standards for professional conduct during its operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Police Department said on Tuesday that it was launching a three-month review of its narcotics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,18041,100,99,1910,1906,81479,9058,11571,16153,1445,9,24,63,104,30355,53306,81478,11570,9057,1446],"class_list":{"0":"post-205465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-nyc","10":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-city-council-nyc","13":"tag-city-councils","14":"tag-department-of-investigation-nyc","15":"tag-downloads-and-streaming","16":"tag-jessica-1981","17":"tag-lincoln","18":"tag-mamdani","19":"tag-new-york","20":"tag-new-york-city","21":"tag-nyc","22":"tag-police","23":"tag-police-department-nyc","24":"tag-police-reform","25":"tag-restler","26":"tag-tisch","27":"tag-video-recordings","28":"tag-zohran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205465","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=205465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}