Mamdani Pushed to Cut 1,300 Officers From a ‘Racist’ N.Y.P.D. in 2022

As a first-term New York State assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani’s views of law enforcement in 2022 were still very much grounded in his democratic socialist roots and shaped by well-publicized acts of police violence.

“We need to dramatically curtail the power and presence of the N.Y.P.D.,” he wrote on his campaign website in 2022 as he sought re-election to his Assembly seat in Queens.

At the time, Mr. Mamdani called for the New York Police Department to reduce its work force “by 1,300 officers through attrition.” He pushed to “immediately” end police overtime, freeze hiring, cancel new officer classes and “institute a moratorium on all new equipment purchases.”

“We can’t reform our way out of a racist police system that’s working exactly as designed — as a means of control over Black & brown New Yorkers,” he wrote.

In his run for mayor of New York City now, Mr. Mamdani has taken steps to mollify some voters and many prominent Democrats who have expressed concerns about his views of the police. Their perception that he is anti-police was based on his calls in 2020 to defund the Police Department and his characterizations of the department as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.”

He now says those remarks, made while he was not yet in office, arose out of frustration after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, who was Black, and that they do not reflect his current views on public safety.

Indeed, since his Democratic primary win in June, Mr. Mamdani has made numerous outreach efforts to establish a better relationship with the police rank and file, trying to shore up one of his biggest political vulnerabilities.

But Mr. Mamdani clearly held critical views of the department more recently than the turmoil in 2020 after Mr. Floyd’s death.

He wrote in 2022 that his proposed policing cuts would help reduce the department’s budget by $3 billion, and suggested that the savings be reinvested in health, housing and community services. The department, at the time, had a $5.4 billion budget and a budgeted head count of 35,030 uniformed officers.

The reallocation of the police funds would be the “first step on the road to a safer and more humane New York,” Mr. Mamdani wrote.

As some police officers in New York responded violently to protests inspired by Mr. Floyd’s killing, state lawmakers returned to Albany for a special session in 2020 and passed a raft of police reforms, which Andrew M. Cuomo, who was then governor, signed. The package included, among other things, a prohibition on the use of chokeholds by officers and the repeal of a law keeping police disciplinary records secret.

In the ensuing years, progressive legislators agitated for more changes. But Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Democrat from the Bronx who leads the powerful Assembly Codes Committee, said that very few of his colleagues were pushing for cuts like the ones Mr. Mamdani proposed.

“Except for people on the fringe, no one wanted to defund the police,” said Mr. Dinowitz, who frequently criticizes Mr. Mamdani.

“Now no one wants to say that,” he continued. “They’re embarrassed and have realized they were wrong on the merits and wrong on the politics.”

By the time Mr. Mamdani announced his run for mayor last October, his views on policing had shifted closer to the mainstream. Now, Mr. Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral nominee and the front-runner in the race, says the police “will be critical partners in delivering public safety.”

He still believes that the Police Department’s overtime budget should be eliminated and that the Strategic Response Group, often used to respond to protests, should be disbanded.

But he no longer wants to reduce the department’s head count, which is about 33,740 uniformed officers, according to department figures, below the budgeted allotment of 35,000. That is down from a from a peak of 40,000 in 2000.

When asked about his shift in policing views, Mr. Mamdani said in a statement that being mayor “requires listening to New Yorkers to understand their safety concerns, and then working with police officers to determine effective solution.” Law enforcement officials have told him that they are hampered in their ability to address violent crime, he added.

“They’re overworked and often tasked with responsibilities beyond policing,” Mr. Mamdani said. “I’m preparing to face this reality head on, invest in a whole-of-government approach to public safety and prove that safety and justice are not mutually exclusive.”

The focus of officers, he said, should be addressing violent crime, like shootings and robberies. He wants to create a Department of Community Safety, with a $1.1 billion budget, that would employ mental health teams to respond to 911 calls from people who are experiencing crisis. The new department would strive to use public health methods to prevent violence and create more mental health programs.

Donovan J. Richards, who served as the City Council’s public safety chair before becoming Queens borough president, said Mr. Mamdani’s views have changed because the world has changed. He said the state assemblyman and others were frustrated as they saw the city craft a budget in 2020 that cut social services and froze hiring while police overtime remained relatively high and spending stayed mostly intact.

“Not that I totally agreed with the reduction in officers,” Mr. Richards, who endorsed Mr. Mamdani after the primary, said. “But people were getting kettled on the bridges, and then we had a looming budget deficit.”

Mr. Mamdani, as an Assembly candidate in 2020, participated in protests across the city during this period. Years later, the department overhauled how it responded to demonstrations.

The reforms included a ban on kettling, which is when protesters are boxed in and then arrested. They were done in response to a lawsuit by the state attorney general, Letitia James, who has endorsed Mr. Mamdani for mayor.

Polls show Mr. Mamdani with a 22-point lead over his closest rival, Mr. Cuomo, who is running as an independent. Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, trails him in third place, and Mayor Eric Adams, who is also running as an independent, is in fourth.

All Mr. Mamdani’s rivals have positioned themselves as tougher on crime and more supportive of the police than he is. Mr. Sliwa wants to add 7,000 more officers, while Mr. Cuomo has said he plans to add 5,000 and increase their pay.

Like Mr. Mamdani, Mr. Adams, a former police captain, says he wants the department to reach its budgeted size of 35,000 officers. To achieve this goal, he directed Jessica S. Tisch, the police commissioner, to develop a plan to “recruit and retain more officers.” The department has altered its eligibility requirements in hopes of reaching that number by next fall.

Hiring thousands more will be a tall order for whoever is elected mayor. Police officials have spoken frequently about the challenge of keeping up with attrition, as officers flee for higher salaries in other law enforcement agencies.

The consequence of this downward slide is a body of officers that is stretched thin and working more overtime. Even so, the varying proposals offer stark contrasts in how the candidates view law enforcement’s role in public safety.

“This campaign is really a choice, not just between people, but between philosophies,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I am a Democrat. My main opponent is a socialist, and within the socialist philosophy, one of the elements is they diminish public safety.”

Mr. Mamdani has often been asked to explain how his views align with or diverge from the platform of the national Democratic Socialists of America, which includes proposals to eliminate all misdemeanor offenses and rejects “expansion to police budgets or scope of enforcement while cutting budgets annually towards zero.”

Mr. Mamdani, who has been a member of the organization's local chapter, has said that only the policies currently listed on his website represent his governing vision.

As the mayoral race progresses, Mr. Mamdani has seemed intent on placating more moderate voters when it comes to public safety, shifting his views on the size of the police force and pledging to apologize to police officers for comments he previously made about them.

In recent days, several powerful members of the Democratic establishment, including Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, have endorsed Mr. Mamdani after a monthslong delay. In announcing her backing, Ms. Hochul said she had ideological distance from Mr. Mamdani on a number of issues, but did not mention law enforcement.

She wrote that she shared with Mr. Mamdani her “priorities, making it very clear that our police officers should have every resource to keep our streets and subways safe. I urged him to ensure that there is strong leadership at the helm of the N.Y.P.D. — and he agreed.”

The New York Times has previously reported that Mr. Mamdani is considering keeping Ms. Tisch as police commissioner, a move that could anger some of his most loyal supporters, who dislike some of her tactics.

But even before he publicly declared his campaign for mayor, Mr. Mamdani’s views on policing appeared fluid.

In the summer of 2024, he was already telling colleagues and friends that he was seriously considering a mayoral bid. During that period, no mention of cutting the number of police officers could be found on the campaign website for his Assembly re-election.