NYPD will disband its plainclothes anti-crime officers


Around 600 New York City Police Department officers are going to have to start putting on their uniforms.
The NYPD's plainclothes anti-crime unit, which patrols neighborhoods across the city, will be disbanded and reassigned, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea announced Monday. The move comes in direct response to ongoing protests against police brutality in the city, and widespread calls for reforming and rethinking policing across the U.S.
About 600 officers work in the anti-crime unit, and will be reassigned to detective work and "community policing," among other departments, Shea said in a Monday press conference. The move "will be felt immediately throughout the five district attorney's offices, it will be felt immediately in the communities that we protect," Shea said, calling it a "seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Members of the unit, which civil rights attorney described to ABC 7 New York as "just a legacy of street crime from the days of [former Mayor Rudy] Giuliani," are tasked with tracking and fighting violent crime in the city. But several "have been involved in some of the city’s most notorious police shootings," The New York Times notes, with an analysis from The Intercept reporting plainclothes officers are disproportionately tied to officer-involved shootings "despite being only a small fraction of the force."
Both Shea and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have been pressured to cut the NYPD's budget amid the protests, but de Blasio has so far only introduced a series of reforms for the department. The New York City Council has proposed cutting $1 billion of the department's $6 billion budget.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
May 31 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include how much to pay for a pardon, medical advice from a brain worm, and a simple solution to the national debt.
-
5 costly cartoons about the national debt
Cartoons Political cartoonists take on the USA's financial hole, rare bipartisan agreement, and Donald Trump and Mike Johnson.
-
Green goddess salad recipe
The Week Recommends Avocado can be the creamy star of the show in this fresh, sharp salad
-
Driver rams van into crowd at Liverpool FC parade
speed read 27 people were hospitalized following the attack
-
2 Israel Embassy staff shot dead at DC Jewish museum
speed read The suspected gunman chanted 'free, free Palestine'
-
Bombing of fertility clinic blamed on 'antinatalist'
speed read A car bombing injured four people and damaged a fertility clinic and nearby buildings in Palm Springs, California
-
Suspect charged after 11 die in Vancouver car attack
Speed Read Kai-Ji Adam Lo drove an SUV into a crowd at the Lapu Lapu Day festival
-
Kenya arrests alleged ant smugglers
speed read Two young Belgians have been charged for attempting to smuggle ants out of the country to exotic pet buyers
-
Judge ends Eric Adams case, Trump leverage
Speed Read Federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams were dismissed, as requested by Trump's Justice Department
-
Texas arrests midwife on felony abortion charges
Speed Read Maria Margarita Rojas and an employee at one of her clinics are the first to be criminally charged under Texas' near-total abortion ban
-
South Carolina to execute prisoner by firing squad
speed read Death row inmate Brad Sigmon prefers the squad over the electric chair or lethal injection, his lawyer said