By Liam Quigley and Elizabeth Kim Dozens of community groups sent Mayor Zohran Mamdani a letter on Thursday calling for him to scale back the NYPD’s crackdown on low-level offenses. The groups, largely made up of criminal justice advocates, criticized Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s focus on “quality of life” arrests, arguing the approach criminalizes poverty. The letter also called on Mamdani to halt plans to hire 580 new police officers, and said the money should instea

New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, ostensibly a police watchdog, cedes much power to police leadership. Experts say the mayor has the power to boost its independence. By Piper French New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, the watchdog agency that oversees the New York Police Department, consistently touts its independence—“independent agency” is the first descriptor on all of the board’s official communications. The board, which investigates instances

Published Thursday, May 7, 2026 By Tandy Lau Lt. Jonathan Rivera, who NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch refused to fire for killing Washington Heights man Allan Feliz, pleaded guilty last week to an Abuse of Authority allegation for unlawful summons from a 2023 incident. He will likely lose 20 vacation days, but keep his job after a separate substantiated misconduct complaint for an offense potentially punishable by termination. Previous calls to fire Rivera stem from him fatal

The cop who killed Delrawn Small now claims he wasn’t acting as a cop to avoid discipline. By Jumaane Williams and Julia Salazar When is a cop not a cop? Whenever it’s convenient, it turns out. We both vividly remember the sweltering day in July 2016 when an NYPD officer killed Delrawn Small, unarmed Black father. One of us was interning at a community organization; the other was already years into fighting the effects of abusive police violence on the streets as an activis