Head of N.Y.P.D. Oversight Board Resigns, Citing Pressure From Union

The chairman of New York City’s police oversight board has resigned, citing intense pressure from the head of the city’s largest police union, whom he accused of waging a “campaign of lies” against him.

The board chairman, Dr. Mohammad Khalid, submitted his resignation on Friday, leaving the position vacant less than two months before the inauguration of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who has supported giving more power to the agency. The 15-member panel, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, reviews investigations of police officers accused of misconduct and votes on whether to recommend discipline.

Dr. Khalid, a dentist with a practice on Staten Island, said he could no longer withstand the attacks of Patrick Hendry, the president of the Police Benevolent Association. Mr. Hendry has spent the last several months criticizing Dr. Khalid in opinion articles and on social media, accusing him of prejudice against police officers.

“Mr. Hendry’s attacks have been relentless and untrue, and they have negatively impacted me, my family and my health,” Dr. Khalid said in a resignation letter addressed to Mayor Eric Adams and to Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the City Council. (The mayor and speaker are not related.)

“To be clear, I would have liked to continue my work with the C.C.R.B.,” Dr. Khalid wrote. “But I will not do so when he can brazenly lie about me without consequence.”

Mayor Adams appointed Dr. Khalid, 77, as interim head of the board in December 2024.

In an interview, Dr. Khalid said that in recent months he had lost sleep and been so stressed that he had to see a doctor. He said he felt he “had no other choice” but to resign.

“He pushed me to the brink,” Dr. Khalid said of Mr. Hendry, adding, “It’s really heartbreaking that you cannot do the job for which you have been appointed.”

In a statement, Mr. Hendry accused Dr. Khalid of having a “biased voting record” against police officers accused of misconduct, saying he had voted to discipline officers 95 percent of the time, a figure the board does not dispute.

He said he also took issue with Dr. Khalid’s support for taking steps to give the board final say on disciplining officers. Currently, the police commissioner has the sole authority to decide whether to set discipline for an officer found guilty of misconduct. Previous board chairs have also recommended giving the board the final say on discipline, and Mr. Mamdani has said he would support that change.

Mr. Hendry said Dr. Khalid’s “dangerous plan to strip away the police commissioner’s authority made it clear that police officers were never going to get fair treatment,” and that Dr. Khalid’s resignation was “an important first step” in making the board an “impartial agency.”

“Dr. Khalid must be replaced by a fair-minded chair,” Mr. Hendry said, “and every case that went against a police officer should be thrown out.”

The board has long had an acrimonious relationship with the city’s police unions, which often criticize the agency’s decisions. The previous chairwoman, Arva Rice, left her post in July 2024, three months after Philip Banks III, then the deputy mayor for public safety, asked her to resign. The request came after she criticized police officials for delaying an investigation into the fatal shooting of a Bronx man by failing to turn over evidence in a timely manner.

Dr. Khalid, who previously served on the board for 10 years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said he returned to the board last year after representatives from Mayor Adams’s office asked him to come back as chairman.

But months into his tenure, Mr. Hendry began criticizing him, calling him “anti-cop.” This month, he called for Dr. Khalid’s resignation, saying he had violated the city’s charter by serving on the board while also keeping a seat on a community board on Staten Island.

“I was never, ever anti-cop,” Dr. Khalid said in the interview. “My own father was a police superintendent in Pakistan.”

Dr. Khalid said his community board seat was a volunteer position that he disclosed when he was appointed board chairman.

In a statement, Mayor Adams thanked Dr. Khalid for his role in “providing police accountability and oversight.”

“We wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors,” Mayor Adams said. “We are committed to working toward a future that allows for healthy discourse and respectful rhetoric.”

Dakota Gardner, a spokesman for the review board, declined to comment on Dr. Khalid’s resignation letter. In a statement, Mr. Gardner said that Dr. Khalid “cared deeply about each case he reviewed.”

“He led by example in letting the values of objectivity and impartiality guide his decision-making,” Mr. Gardner said. “He always sought to follow the law and the facts, no matter what.”