NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani directed the New York Police Department on Monday to conduct its first broad evaluation of use-of-force guidelines in a decade, pairing the initiative with an expanded oversight budget and fresh accountability measures following the contentious retirement of an officer involved in a fatal shooting.
City Hall announced the policy examination alongside a $2.6 million funding increase for the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD. The independent watchdog, which scrutinizes police conduct and department procedures, saw its staff drop to just three employees in recent years from roughly 40. The new city funding will triple the office’s current staffing level, the New York Post reported.
The policy moves follow public outcry after police officer Salvatore Alongi stepped down before facing an administrative department trial over the 2024 killing of Win Rozario. The 19-year-old was fatally shot in Queens while experiencing a mental health emergency. State Attorney General Letitia James declined to file criminal charges in late 2025 after an investigation, but internal department hearings were pending until Alongi was permitted to retire.
“When the government uses force against a New Yorker, the standard for accountability must be at its highest,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Every New Yorker deserves to know that force will be used lawfully, carefully and only when necessary.”
New Disciplinary Safeguards
To prevent officers from bypassing department tribunals, the city is instituting a tracking mechanism designed to prioritize and finish disciplinary proceedings before a pending retirement can take effect. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch acknowledged that the department had failed to alert the Civilian Complaint Review Board during Alongi’s retirement, describing the lapse as a consequence of “human error” for which she apologized, according to ABC News.
Additionally, the department will formally notify state authorities whenever an officer departs while under internal charges, giving state regulators the opportunity to consider decertification and keep them from taking jobs at other law enforcement agencies.
Police union leaders immediately criticized the mayor’s measures. Scott Munro, president of the Detectives Endowment Association, warned on social media that targeting officers weakens morale and pushes veteran investigators off the force. Patrick Hendry, another prominent police union leader, said the announcement was an effort by the mayor to placate left-wing activists and argued it would not enhance public safety.
Progressive Pressure on Leadership
Mamdani, who took office earlier this year as a democratic socialist, has faced escalating demands from progressive allies to overhaul the nation’s largest municipal police agency. Activists and allied lawmakers have called for dismantling the Strategic Response Group, a specialized unit that handles major demonstrations, and have pressed Mamdani to replace Tisch, an appointee held over from the previous administration.
Those tensions flared further after an Oct. 8 incident in Marble Hill, where a federal immigration agent shot 28-year-old Oscar Belgal inside an SUV, triggering protests and allegations from local organizers of heavy-handed policing by city officers during crowd control. A City Hall representative told Al Jazeera that the administration had already been formulating the use-of-force review before the federal shooting occurred.
According to city figures cited by Al Jazeera, documented use-of-force incidents within the NYPD rose from 4,087 in 2016 to 12,348 in 2025, even as overall major crime and homicides in New York reached historic lows during the first nine months of the year.
Officials said the comprehensive examination of use-of-force protocols will proceed over the next several months and will include a public feedback process.
