Unions warn Mamdani NYPD force review won't improve safety

Win Rozario’s family stood at City Hall last week and revealed that Officer Salvatore Alongi had retired in May with an accidental disability pension before a Civilian Complaint Review Board disciplinary trial, accusing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration of betrayal.

Alongi and Officer Matthew Cianfrocco had responded on March 27, 2024, to Rozario’s 911 call from Ozone Park, Queens. The 19-year-old was in a mental health crisis. According to the state record of the encounter, Cianfrocco fired three shots after Rozario picked up scissors a second time. In December 2025 the State Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations declined criminal charges against both officers, citing justified use of force under body-cam review.

The Civilian Complaint Review Board still pursued departmental charges. The NYPD failed to notify that board of Alongi’s retirement application. By the time the family forced the issue into public view, the pension had been granted and the trial path against Alongi was closed. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch addressed the failure directly. “As a result of human error, we failed to do so, and I apologize for that mistake,” she said. She added, “We should have notified the CCRB before the Pension Board considered Officer Alongi’s disability pension so that CCRB could take whatever steps it deemed appropriate.” The civilian NYPD employee who missed the notification was demoted with a pay cut and removed from disciplinary-case responsibilities.

Mamdani answered with a City Hall statement ordering the NYPD’s first comprehensive review of use-of-force policies and practices in a decade. The review is to run over coming months with community input. He framed the order around the highest standard when government uses force. “When the government uses force against a New Yorker, the standard for accountability must be at its highest. Every New Yorker deserves to know that force will be used lawfully, carefully and only when necessary,” the mayor said. “We have an obligation to Win’s family and to every New Yorker who calls for help in a moment of crisis. This review is about making sure our policies reflect that responsibility, that our officers have the guidance and training they need and that New Yorkers and their families can trust their city will treat them with care and dignity.”

The package goes beyond the review. City Hall is adding $2.6 million for the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD, a sum the administration says will triple that office’s headcount. The department has put in place a two-level retirement notification process: supervisor review first, then the NYPD Department Advocate notifies senior CCRB officials. The NYPD will formalize reporting of officers who retire with pending disciplinary charges to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services for possible decertification, so they cannot simply move to another New York agency. It pledges continued compliance with the state’s STAT Act reporting requirements for police-involved deaths and will standardize sharing of Force Investigation Division final reports with families after critical incidents.

Those steps answer a real administrative failure on the Alongi paperwork. They do not rewrite the Attorney General’s finding that the shooting itself was justified. Nor do they address what the officers faced when a young man in crisis advanced a second time with scissors after a Taser deployment. Public safety still turns on whether officers who answer 911 calls retain clear authority to stop an imminent threat, and on whether the city will defend that authority when the political pressure runs the other way.

Mamdani’s case, stated in his own words, is that force must be lawful, careful, and necessary, that officers need better guidance and training especially in mental-health crises, and that families must be able to trust the city. The administration presents the inspector-general funding, the retirement lock, the decertification channel, and the family-report rule as the concrete means. The record does not show a competing detailed alternative from City Hall beyond that package.

Police unions answered on different ground. Patrick Hendry of the Police Benevolent Association said the announcement was political cover. “The mayor’s radical base wants a wholesale dismantling of the NYPD, and it’s clear this announcement is an attempt to appease them. It won’t work, and it won’t make New Yorkers any safer,” Hendry said. He tied the force review to the board that interprets the rules officers must live under: “There should be no review of the NYPD’s use-of-force policies without a corresponding review of the blatantly biased and unjust way those policies are interpreted by the Civilian Complaint Review Board.” He said the union had already raised anti-police bias with the mayor’s team. “We have brought several examples of anti-police bias to the attention of the mayor and his team and we’ve seen zero meaningful action.”

Scott Munro of the Detectives’ Endowment Association put the cost in personnel terms. “You cannot weaken morale, drive experienced Detectives out, and discourage new recruits while expecting public safety to improve,” Munro said. The $2.6 million for a tripled inspector-general staff is real money from taxpayers. It expands an oversight bureaucracy at the same moment unions say experienced investigators are being pushed out and new hiring is chilled. Limited government and the rule of law require accountability when force is used; they also require that lawful force not be second-guessed into paralysis after a state review has already cleared the officers.