Mamdani Suddenly Can't Give a Straight Answer On His NYPD Promises

One day after NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted his job offer to join the new administration, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani can't seem to give a straight answer to questions of police accountability that he had no problem articulating just a few weeks ago on the campaign trail.

Candidate Mamdani said in early October that he wanted the NYPD's civilian watchdog, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, to be the "final voice of the question of accountability," a position that angered police unions because this would put a stop to the all-too-common practice of the police commissioner short-circuiting police accountability—like Commissioner Tisch did earlier this year.

But in an interview with PIX11 on Wednesday, and at a press conference outside of City Hall on Thursday morning, Mayor-elect Mamdani was evasive on whether he still believes that the police commissioner and the NYPD should respect the CCRB's determination as final.

"The CCRB has to deal with questions of petty politics and budget battles," Mamdani told PIX11, dodging the question of who will have the final disciplinary say and shifting it to a discussion on the CCRB's lack of resources. "I'm going to put an end to that by fully funding the CCRB so that no longer are we having to question whether we can follow through on a case because we don't have the requisite amount of money."