"What happens to the NYPD under a Mamdani administration could also become a bellwether for the Democratic Party in next year’s midterm elections."
A lieutenant with 19 years on the job remembers hearing nervous laughter when he walked into his New York Police Department command post the morning after Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral nomination in June.
“Everyone was like, ‘Get ready to retire,’ ” he told me. “It was definitely like the sky was falling.”
The lieutenant said that he always thought he would stay on the police force for at least 25 years. Many cops say that if you stay for 25 or 30 years, you might never have to work another day in your life. The pension is that good. Now, he isn’t sure if it’s still worth it.
“It’s shaken me to my core,” he said of Mamdani’s unexpected victory in June. “The absolute dread I feel is palpable.”
"Some days, his mind races with worst-case scenarios: “Is he going to cut a billion dollars out of our budget?” he wonders. “Will my caseload keep piling up while we just get more and more short-staffed?”
“Who will even want this job anymore?” he asked. “Will I?”
"Other NYPD cops also told me that they are considering retiring if Mamdani, who once advocated for “a socialist city council to defund the NYPD,” wins the election. Polls show Mamdani with a double-digit lead. Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo raked in nearly $400,000 in the days after incumbent mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race, but that’s still far less than Mamdani has.
"The NYPD is the largest police department in the United States, with 33,740 uniformed officers, but it’s facing a manpower crisis that has grown even worse in recent months, said Bill Bratton, who was police commissioner for mayors Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, and progressive Democrat Bill de Blasio. That is the fewest number of officers in the department since 1994. This year is on track to have one of the highest attrition rates of the past decade, according to data from the Police Benevolent Association, the largest NYPD union.
"Over the past year, the NYPD has lowered its selection criteria, temporarily waived application fees, and cut the minimum age for recruits from 21 to 20 years and six months. Those moves show how hard it has become to fill the ranks. Bratton, who might be best known for advocating “broken windows” policing—in which cops target minor crimes such as vandalism and fare evasion—told me that a Mayor Mamdani would only accelerate the police force brain drain." . . . More...
Initially, Jones refused to apologize for his disturbing text messages and blasted his rival, conservative incumbent AG Jason Miyares, for “dropping smears” against him.
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