By MES Dispatch Staff
The Briefing
- New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to announce a plan to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, according to Politico, which cited anonymous sources.
- The unit handles both counterterrorism and protest response, and disbanding it was a Mamdani campaign promise that he had not acted on in his first year in office.
- One source said protest response could shift to a civilian de-escalation team, possibly housed in the city’s Office of Community Safety, with officers staged nearby to make arrests if needed.
- City Hall spokesperson Dora Pekec said in a statement that the administration “will disband” the group and “separate protest response from counterterrorism,” with more details coming soon.
- NYPD leadership has defended the unit as highly trained to make arrests safely during large demonstrations, Politico reported.
NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to announce a plan to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, the unit that handles both counterterrorism and protest response, according to Politico and Police1.
The group’s dual role is central to the mayor’s argument. Mamdani has said the unit was created to address terror threats but later took on protest response, and that the two functions should be separate. He has also pointed to a high rate of misconduct complaints against its members, Politico reported.
Three sources who spoke to Politico anonymously said the plan could replace the unit’s protest role with a civilian group focused on de-escalation, with NYPD officers staged nearby and able to make arrests when necessary. City Hall has considered placing that team in the Office of Community Safety, which Mamdani launched earlier this year, one source said. The sources said the announcement could come in an executive order, possibly as early as this week.
City Hall spokesperson Dora Pekec did not answer questions about details, saying in a statement that the administration “will disband the Strategic Response Group and separate protest response from counterterrorism,” and that more information is coming soon.
NYPD leadership has defended the unit as highly trained and able to make arrests safely during large, chaotic demonstrations, Politico reported. Council member Chi Ossé has also pushed legislation limiting the unit’s role in protests, and the latest version of his bill would require the mayor to eliminate it. The department’s protest response, including how and when it uses the unit, is governed by a court settlement stemming from its handling of demonstrations after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020, according to Politico.