New York City's democratic socialist mayor is reportedly going to reveal his plan to disband a counterterrorism group within the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
The post Report: Leftist Mayor Zohran Mamdani to Replace ‘Critical’ Counterterrorism Group with Civilian Unit appeared first on Breitbart.
New York City’s democratic socialist mayor is reportedly going to reveal his plan to disband a counterterrorism group within the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) is expected to share the plan to dissolve the Strategic Response Group (SRG) in the next few days, Politico reported Thursday, citing three individuals with knowledge of the issue.
The NYPD’s website described the SRG as a “critical asset” during large events in the city:
Strategic Response Group responds to citywide mobilizations, civil disorders, and major events with highly trained personnel and specialized equipment. They are also deployed to areas requiring an increased police presence due to increased crime or other conditions. With multiple missions that include disorder response, crime suppression, and crowd control, SRG has proven to be a critical asset during events like parades, protests, and the papal visit. SRG also mobilizes for shootings, bank robberies, missing persons, demonstrations, or other significant incidents.
The mayor’s plan could involve cutting the SRG and replacing it with a civilian unit that would lead responses to protests, one of the individuals who spoke with Politico said.
“Under the plan — which had not been finalized as of Thursday morning — the new civilian unit would be supported by NYPD officers, who would assemble nearby and could step in to conduct arrests if needed, said the person, noting that the civilian entity’s main goal would be de-escalation,” the outlet stated. “The person said City Hall has been considering placing the civilian protest unit under the umbrella of Mamdani’s signature Office of Community Safety, which he launched earlier this year.”
In July 2025, NYPD Chief of Department John Chell reacted to then-candidate Mamdani’s call to abolish the SRG, per Breitbart News.
“So, look, since October 7, we’ve had over 6,000 protests. We had our No Kings protests a couple of weeks ago with 75,000 protesters. Our SRG [are] highly trained, highly professional men and women who hold the line. In the last two years of protests, we’ve had no major incidents in the city. The No Kings protests, about 500 out of 50,000 thought they were going to tear our city apart, and our SRG stopped them,” he explained.
“So, for anyone to say they’re going to disband that kind of success in unit, quite frankly, is foolish and doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Chell added.
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Breitbart News reported in August 2025 that Mamdani was spending tens of thousands of dollars on private security while he campaigned for the mayor’s seat and also while being a “defund the police” candidate.
