Zohran Mamdani wants to strip power from NYPD commissioner — revoking final say on officer discipline

Mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani wants to strip the NYPD commissioner’s power to discipline officers, giving the final say to the force’s civilian oversight board — that the lefty pol and his comrades would have a major hand in picking.

The NYPD’s largest union warned the Democratic nominee’s proposal would lead to the “end of policing in this city,” as cops are already worried about receiving a fair shake from the 15-member Civilian Complaint Review Board, a third of which is appointed by the mayor.

If Mamdani is elected, he could select up to two new members in his first month and a third within his first year.

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The proud socialist told reporters Tuesday he wants to embolden the CCRB so that the panel has final say on serious disciplinary matters, rather than issuing recommendations to the city’s top cop as it does currently.

“I think that what it needs to be is that it is a body that is actually empowered so that it works,” Mamdani said, adding, “Its oversight is one that extends to more than simply a recommendation.”

“What I would do is ensure that the recommendations of the CCRB be understood to be the final voice of the question of accountability,” he said during an unrelated press conference in Manhattan.

The comments came as the Queens state assemblyman has already been trying to clean up his past anti-police stance — and were instantly met with fierce blowback from the city’s police unions and former NYPD commissioners.

“Granting the Civilian Complaint Review Board final disciplinary authority will spell the end of policing in this city,” railed Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry.

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“Police officers know that we have zero chance of receiving a fair hearing from the anti-police activists who dominate CCRB’s board,” Hendry said in a statement.

“If Assemblyman Mamdani pursues this plan, he will prove that all his talk about ‘outreach’ to police officers is a sham – he’s running to defund the police after all.”

The Sergeants Benevolent Association union said the proposed powershift was the easiest way to ensure a mass exodus of cops from the department.

“Further empowering the CCRB will destroy the morale of this agency and exacerbate our current problems with recruitment and retainment,” warned SBA President Vincent Vallelong.

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“If that’s Mamdani’s vision for our department he will never have the support of the men and women who keep this city safe 24/7.”

The board has sparred repeatedly with police unions and drawn the scorn of cops at all levels — most notably in 2019 when the CCRB brought a case against then-officer Daniel Pantaleo over the fatal arrest of Eric Garner. 

The high-profile prosecution at One Police Plaza made headlines for weeks before an internal NYPD judge recommended that Pantaleo be fired. 

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It took then-top cop James O’Neill, who served under Mayor Bill de Blasio, weeks to decide to side with the CCRB and fire Pantaleo, which set off a near revolt among the rank-and-file, with brass later admitting cops were making far fewer arrests in the fallout. 

Mamdani’s stance seeking to expand the board’s power is unsurprising for a Democratic Socialists of America member, with local followers often calling for the CCRB to have more power and slamming the commissioner if he or she breaks with the board’s suggestions.

Earlier this year, City Council progressives slammed Commissioner Jessica Tisch for going against an administrative judge ruling supported by the CCRB that Lt. Jonathan Rivera should be canned over the October 2019 shooting death of 31-year-old Allan Feliz during a chaotic traffic stop.  

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In fiscal year 2025, there were 5,575 complaints filed against cops with the CCRB substantiating 1,064 of them, or about 20%. That figure was 39% higher than the previous year and an all-time high for any on record, going back to 2019.

The commissioner’s office declined the CCRB’s recommended discipline in more than half the cases over the fiscal year.

“He’s taking away one of the most significant responsibilities of the police commissioner,” ex-top cop Bill Bratton told The Post Wednesday of Mamdani’s push.

Mamdani appointees to the CCRB will also likely be scrutinized by cops over whether they can be trusted as fair decision-makers, said Bratton, who served under Rudy Giuliani from 1994 to 1996 and Bill de Blasio from 2014 to 2016.

The mayor has five picks on the board, and Hizzoner’s hand-picked police commissioner has another three. 

The City Council also gets five picks and the public advocate gets one. The chair is named jointly by the mayor with City Council approval, but the appointee could be left in an acting role for years. 

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A law enforcement expert told The Post taking the final decision away from the commissioner sends a bad message to the department.  

“I don’t know any other profession that removes disciplinary actions from the agency and it’s basically saying to the police, we don’t trust them,” John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Maria Haberfeld said. “It is certainly something that affects morale.”

Other high-profile instances of top cops breaking with the CCRB include when then-Commissioner Edward Caban last year cleared both cops in the 2019 shooting death of Kawaski Trawick, saying they “acted within the law.”

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Caban also declined to punish Deputy Chief Gerard Dowling, of the Special Operations Bureau, who was accused of assaulting a female protester during the 2020 demonstrations against police brutality. He went as far as to pull the high-ranking official’s case in 2023 from the CCRB’s jurisdiction, according to the Daily News.

Mamdani has already faced heat for his prior attacks on the NYPD, including calling the department “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety” on social media in 2020.

He said more than two weeks ago that he should apologize to the NYPD for the comments, but has since offered up a word-salad response when pressed on how or when he’d walk back the statements.

The lefty lawmaker has also attempted to distance himself from his past “defund the police” views as he eyes the November election.

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Democratic operatives told The Post the meandering retorts ensure the DSA will come out in full force to back Mamdani.

If elected, Mamdani could convene a Charter Review Commission and task it with creating a ballot question to put to voters to opt whether to allow the CCRB to effectively outrank the police commissioner on disciplinary decisions.

De Blasio significantly expanded the board’s power during his tenure, tasking the board with probing allegations of racial profiling and untruthful statements and giving it the power to launch its own investigations without a civilian complaint through ballot initiatives. 

The board is currently without a confirmed chair, with one of the council’s picks, Staten Island community leader, Dr. Mohammad Khalid, serving as an acting board leader. The spot was vacated in 2022 when then-Deputy Mayor Phil Banks asked Arva Rice to resign. 

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There are two other vacancies currently on the board with openings left to be appointed by the PC and the council.

De Blasio’s chairman, Richard Emery found himself in hot water in 2016 after calling subordinates “p—ies” and depicting the police union official as “squealing like a stuck pig.”

The head of the sergeants’ union bemoaned any bid to strip the PC of power in favor of the civilian panel.

“Any attempt to dilute the power of the police commissioner and hand more power to the CCRB will be strongly opposed by the SBA and met with fierce resistance,” Vallelong said.

“We are part of the largest police department in the world, which has consistently, over the past four years, made NYC the safest big city in America.”

“Detectives are continually railroaded by members of the cop-hating CCRB — and the men and women in blue see it as another reason to leave the NYPD,” said DEA President Scott Munro. “If you think police recruitment is hard now and you’re worried about your public safety — just wait!”

— Additional reporting by Larry Celona, Carl Campanile and Haley Brown