NYC NOW - Inside the NYPD Unit Mayor Zohran Mamdani Wants to Dismantle

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran on a promise to dismantle the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, a unit long criticized for its role in policing protests. But weeks into his administration, SRG officers are still being deployed, including at recent anti ICE demonstrations that led to mass arrests. In this episode, WNYC and Gothamist reporter Ben Feuerherd explains how the unit was created, how it evolved from a counterterrorism force into a protest policing squad, and why critics say its structure and training created problems from the start. We also look at what Mamdani is now saying about disbanding the unit and why, for the moment, it remains in use.

Welcome to NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. The NYPD's Strategic Response Group is a unit that has long been criticized for how it handles protests in the city. In a campaign promise, Zora Mamdani said he'd get rid of it. But where does that stand now? We'll get into that soon. But first, here's a couple news headlines. Governor Kathy Hockel is tapping former New York City Council Speaker Adrian Adams as her running mate.

It's a historic move forming the first women-led tip. for a major party. The Democratic governor says Adams will be a strong voice helping her stand up to President Trump. Hokel's reelection campaign announced a ticket on the eve of the Democratic Convention in Syracuse. Both women are moderates. Hockel is a white woman from Buffalo and Adams is a black woman from Southeast Queens. The governor's Democratic primary challenger, Antonio Delgado, named India Walton as his running mate. Republican candidate Bruce Blakman is still vetting possible partners. Mayor Mumdani's administration is promoting a free tax filing program for New Yorkers as tax day gets closer.

He says nearly half of New Yorkers are eligible, specifically families who made up to $97,000 last year and single filers who made up to $68,000. For so many New Yorkers, a feeling of nagging dread begins to intensify as the April 15th deadline nears. Even now, in early February, I know that that pressure is beginning to. amount. The mayor says the program saved New Yorkers more than $38 million last year. There are more than 140 locations across the city that can help residents with their tax needs year-round for free. New Yorkers who qualify for the program and want to get a jump on their taxes can learn more at NYC.gov forward slash tax prep. A beloved comic book store in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, is closing after nearly 20 years. Galaxy Comics opened back in 2007, but the owners say,

the store will close on March 1st. However, the park's slope location of Galaxy Comics remains open. So check that one out if you're interested. Up next, we take a look at the controversial NYPD unit that Mayor Mumdani says he'd like to disband. That's after a quick break. During his mayoral campaign, Zoroamamani made a very specific promise

about how protests should be policed in New York City. He said he wanted to disband the NYPD's strategic response. That's a unit that has long been criticized for how it handles demonstrations. There is a need to ensure that every act we take is one that is actually delivering public safety. And what we see right now, especially with regards to how we respond to protests, is not in line. But now, Mumdani is mayor, and he says he's still committed to dismantling that unit. The Strategic Response Group has continued to be deployed, including at recent anti-ice protests, where arrests were made. We know that until we deliver this in an operational manner that the SRG will continue to be used,

and that is why we are hard at work to resolving this issue. So today, we're going to slow down a bit and answer some questions, like what this unit actually is, why it's controversial, and why, at least for the moment, this group is still on the streets. WMYC and Gothamist reporter Ben Fewer Heard has been covering this, And to help better understand how this unit has evolved over the years, Ben's vote to a former NYPD deputy inspector who helped create the unit more than a decade ago. So Ben, tell me what is the NYPD Strategic Response Group and why was it created in the first place? So the former deputy inspector who I talked to, this guy, Anthony Ragonela, he sort of walked us through the genesis of it. And he said it was pulled together eventually in 2015.

at first in response to a number of high-profile mass shootings and terror attacks across the country. And he said the idea for it was to have this police unit that would supplement other units that already existed in the MIPD that could respond to something like a mass shooting in case the other units are tapped out. Meaning if there was a mass shooting in the city and the emergency services unit didn't have enough officers to respond. the strategic response group would also be trained to respond to something like a mass casualty event. But at the same time, it was also designed to police peaceful protests to what he said, facilitate First Amendment activity in the city is how the police phrased it. So to Ragonela, it sort of like created this inherent conflict to him. Like, on one hand, you have officers who are trained in to carry heavy weapons.

And on the other hand, you had the same officers. ready to respond to protests. When we initially put up the idea of the strategic response group, I personally did not want the strategic response group to have heavy weapons. And I did not like the idea of crossing over having a unit that carried heavy weapons, but then was also responsible for facilitating First Amendment assemblies. I just thought that there was an inherent conflict in that approach and that optic. And we kind of push back on the idea of the heavy weapons, but it got overruled. Just seeing heavy weapons at a peaceful protest can kind of rub people the wrong way, right?

Yeah. And it's important to note, it was never the intent that they would actually carry these weapons at protests. But that was the initial questions that everybody had in the city, like, okay, these people are trained to carry machine guns, essentially? Like, are they going to be at protest with them? And the answer is no. But that wasn't communicated clearly, I think, to the public. And people's first reaction was, this is a strange dichotomy here. We never set out to say that we're going to carry heavy weapons at a protest. That was never on the table. But the public didn't understand that because they just heard, this is a public order unit that's going to respond to protests.

But wait a minute, they're going to carry heavy weapons also. And because the education to the public wasn't done, the public misunderstood it as they're going to be, had protests with heavy weapons, and that was never the idea. This was during that time when people were talking about the militarization of police, right? Certainly. I mean, in that conversation, exists today. Yeah. I want to go back to what you said, that this group was put together in 2015, and I'm thinking about all the unrest that happened during that time. Of course, there was the police killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Eric Garner right here in New York City,

and then also the May Day protests here in New York City, a lot going on. So you're telling me that this group was created in response to all of this? Yeah, so certainly, but also it just came at a time where the country and the city was at a fever pitch in terms of policing, these really high-profile police killings, and people responding to all that in huge numbers. So Raganella told me that these issues that have been raised about SRG, these people, problems that are not unique to the NYPD that these issues exist across the country. And he even said that he traveled to Europe to, you know, better understand how police departments like the Metropolitan Department in London actually police protest, police free speech. And what did he find?

He thought that we were well behind Europe at the time. All right. So let's talk about when the shift happened with this unit because it has become especially associated with policing protests. Why has that drawn so much criticism? Yeah, so I think it's sort of what you mentioned before that. It was formed at this moment in the city and also around the country where protests just exploded in response specifically to police killings of people of color. And then it all sort of culminated in 2020 where you had some protesters, you know, destroyed property in the city, like burning cop cars. And that's after the killing of George Floyd. Yeah, exactly.

And then also, at the same time, there's real criticism about how NYPD officers responded to those peaceful demonstrations, but also the more violent demonstrations that happened, or destructive, rather. And then eventually, so after all that, the department faced a whole host of lawsuits over their response about how they assaulted protesters and things like that. And then to settle all these claims in 2023, the department agreed to make changes on how they police protests. And part of that was they agreed to limit how SRG could be deployed at them. It was a big victory for civil rights groups for the NYCLU, who they called SRG notorious in their announcement of the settlement. What were Raganella's thoughts about those changes that were implemented? He raised the response to 2020.

Basically, his whole thesis about SRG was that the training that the officers received when it was first formed was not, sufficient. He and others who devised the unit essentially originally put forth this idea that they would be trained in an 11-week academy, and then by the time it was time to get it off the ground that was whittled down to two weeks. The powers that be, they were in such a rush to get this unit up and running, they whittled it down to two weeks of training. And one of those two weeks, an entire week, was going to be dedicated to handling of heavy weapons. So the whole notion of having this vision that I had of a credible specialized unit got whittled down to two weeks and half of it was dedicated to special weapons

training. Needless to say, we got what we paid for. I just want to note that an NYPD spokesperson, Brad Weeks, he pushed back on this notion that officers assigned to SRG were not sufficiently trained. Week says SRG officers go through a seven-week initial training that covers topics such as crowd control, First Amendment rights, and arrest tactics. And then he also said, in addition, officers complete monthly refresher courses on all those topics. This conversation comes back up after recent arrests at anti-ice protests in Lower Manhattan. What role did SRG play in those arrests? So, yeah, in the last week of January, there is a pretty significant anti-ice protests in Lower Manhattan, as they're, have been for months now.

And this one just sort of focused on a hotel that protesters thought was being used by DHS or maybe ICE agents were staying there. And the protesters ended up sort of like occupying the lobby of this hotel that's near Canal Street. And they didn't leave, and NYPD spokesperson says, police were there telling them to get out of the hotel

for 45 minutes and eventually officers arrested more than 60 people, including officers from the Strategic Response Group. And among the protesters arrested was Dante de Blasio, the former mayor's son. Former Mayor de Blasio. This recent anti-ice protests that happened in Lower Manhattan, this is actually the first time that SRG has been out since Mayor Mundani has been in office, right? Yeah, so it's certainly the first newsworthy or high profile. I don't know if they've been out at other demonstrations, but this one definitely caught the eye, like the mayor.

or responded to it at a press conference. The NYPD continues to respond to protests, as is their responsibility. And we have also emphasized the need for all of those responses, as always, to be ones that respect New Yorkers exercising of First Amendment activity. And I think that to add that I also commend New Yorkers who exercise their constitutional right to protest, especially in bringing attention to the horrific abuses of ICE across this country. I think especially right now in Minneapolis.

Why is the unit still being used in the first place? Yeah, so he actually talked about that at that press conference, and he said, you know, I'm working with the police commissioner. He said, I've had conversations with her about, you know, I'm committed to doing this. And I believe that we should do so not on the basis of any fiscal need, but frankly on the need to decouple the counterterrorism responsibilities within the department from police response to First Amendment exercise.

And I asked Ragano, you know, where does he come down on that? Does he see eye to eye with Mabdani? And he said that it's kind of ironic that he, the sort of like typical long-time law enforcement NYPD officer has some common ground with MAMD, the Democratic Socialists, who obviously faced lots of criticism during the campaign about statements he made about the NYPD and who actually had to formally apologize to members of the NYPD over statements he's made. It kind of makes me wonder if he may have somehow heard about the work that myself and my colleagues are doing to bring attention to this, because it's kind of right in line with what we've been talking

about. I'm hopeful that it will result in what we initially wanted for the SRG back in 2014 when we were trying to figure out what it was going to look like. If we could get back to having that, I would be ecstatic about it. So Raganella believes that this group is necessary, but could use some revisions. Yeah, and he said he's like cautiously optimistic. That's what he said about Mamdani taking this seriously. And he worries, as I'm sure other people do, that the department could just disband it, create something with a new name that for all intents and purposes is the exact same thing.

But he is hopeful that they don't do that, that they actually, maybe they separate the powers of responding to. like terrorism and responding to protests, which then Donnie said that at the press conference, that his sort of like core ideological problem with them is that they're trained to respond to things like terrorism while also trained to respond to things like protests, which, as he said, just creates this inherent conflict. Do you need this group or can police just do their jobs? You talked about the resurgence of all these lawsuits and everything after the killing of George

Floyd when all of these protests were going on nationwide, it was like every cop was needed. And this was also during a time where we had Black Lives Matter versus Blue Lives Matter, right? So it's like, why not give the entire department this type of training? Yeah, there's certainly a case to be made that police should be out there, but also to what extent and what does that look like? That's the question that all these competing forces have, like the Civil Liberties groups, the police officers, the executives and the PD, and also the mayor. As we've seen over the past five years, demonstrations, protests pop up everywhere. Yeah. All over the city. Everywhere, every day. That's WMYC's been fewer heard. Ben, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. Thanks.