Activists rip Mamdani for boosting NYPD headcount, breaking police crackdown campaign pledge

Activists slammed former “defund the police” advocate Mayor Zohran Mamdani Thursday for swelling the ranks of New York’s Finest in an about-face from his campaign pledge to reshape the NYPD.

Around 50 elected officials and advocates, including from the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, gathered around City Hall, calling out the mayor for proposing increasing the police department’s headcount by 580 officers.

“The reason I am here is to help the mayor keep the commitment that were made,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a Mamdani ally, said.

Hizzoner, on the campaign trail last year, had promised to freeze the NYPD’s staffing at 35,000. But his executive budget proposal would boost the ranks from the current 33,861 to 35,370 in the 2027 fiscal year.

Samy Feliz, whose older brother Allan Feliz was fatally shot by NYPD Lt. Jonathan Rivera during a 2019 traffic stop, also ripped Mamdani, who had called for the cop to be fired.

“You even stood with my family and called Jonathan Rivera a murderer and he has yet to be fired. Why haven’t you delivered on any of it?” Feliz said. “We’re tired of waiting for unfulfilled promises.”

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch determined in a nine-page ruling that Rivera was justified because he was protecting the life of a fellow cop during the incident.

Mamdani, during the campaign, also pledged the NYPD would stop sending cops to mental health-related 911 calls, proposing launching an entirely new, $1.1 billion Department of Community Safety that would dispatch outreach workers and counselors instead.

Instead, he has launched a watered down roughly $260 million Mayor’s Office of Community Safety.

Mamdani had also vowed to disband the NYPD’s elite Strategic Response Group, scrap the department’s gang database and end homeless encampment sweeps — though has yet to make good.

The group of advocates and officials noted that the mayor was opting to spend scratch on hiring cops instead of housing or education — as the June 30 deadline for the City Council to approve the budget looms.

Bronx Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez, a member of the legislative body’s Progressive Caucus, said she would vote against the budget if Mamdani’s promise to expand housing voucher programs like CityFHEPS isn’t fulfilled.

“That is what my kids need. That is what I need. That is what our people need. So please, as an ally, I will do the right thing to make true on your camping promises,” she said.

A separate group of landlords, homeowners and NYCHA residents formed the “New York Neighborhoods Coalition” to demand Mamdani expand the program.

“This budget of broken promises is a slap in the face to all New Yorkers who are struggling to stay in their home and live in dignity,” said coalition member Pastor Richard E. Griffiths, of the Bronx Bethany Church of the Nazarene.

The mayor said he was taking the criticism into consideration during final budget negotiations.

“I appreciate the fact that their concern comes from a desire for the city to be the best that it can be, the safest that it could be,” he told News12. “And as the mayor, you appreciate and take into consideration everyone’s views and opinions on these things.”