Mayor Adams said he will defund the NYPD. Does he mean that?

Shortly after Mayor Eric Adams said he would impose a hiring freeze on the police department, the alarming texts began circulating.

Adorned with red siren emojis and full of speculation, they warned rank-and-file officers that many might be transferred back to patrol and that buyouts and demotions were coming. Police unions called the proposed cuts a “disaster,” and even rapper Cardi B joined in, predicting in a video on social media that “Crimes will skyrocket.”

Some in New York politics wondered whether the mayor’s headlines last week were an attempt to get President Biden’s attention over the migrant crisis or a negotiating tactic in the annual budget dance with the City Council. Many said they found it difficult to believe that Mr. Adams, a former police commissioner who has tied his identity to the department, would continue with the cuts.

“This certainly feels like an intentional Hail Mary to spur Albany and D.C. to provide more aid,” said Justin Brannan, a Brooklyn councilman and chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee.

At a town hall in Coney Island, Brooklyn, on Monday evening, the mayor said the cuts were real, but that he did not want to implement them. “We are all angry,” he said. “Don’t yell at me. Shout out to DC”

Retired executives say if the city actually goes ahead with its plan to delay five classes of new officers through 2025, it will further overwhelm the units that investigate sex crimes and homicides, detectives already dealing with a crushing workload, and officers will be forced to work overtime and weekends. shifts, crushing morale.

Police Commissioner Edward Caban has not yet made a public statement on the implications of a proposal that would cut the number of officers below 30,000 for the first time in decades. In 2022, there were nearly 35,000 officers in the department. In a statement, the police department said it is “managing its budget to ensure it is used in a way that continues to prioritize public safety.”

But within the department, the announcement prompted many to say they would consider early retirement.

“NYPD is as thin as it can be right now,” said Paul DiGiacomo, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association. “It just adds stress to an already stressful job. Every little thing makes the situation worse, and the only people who lose are the city’s residents and the victims of crimes.”

Mr Adams said the cuts to the city’s $110 billion budget were necessary because of the growing costs of the migrant crisis. Every agency would be affected, including the Department of Education, which would see its budget cut by $1 billion over two years; the Sanitation Department; the city’s libraries; and popular programs such as summer school and universal preschool.

In addition to the migrant crisis, the city faces major budget challenges, including the end of federal pandemic aid and the cost of new labor contracts approved by Mr. Adams, who counts unions among his closest allies.

Mr. Brannan said the City Council plans to examine the cuts at a hearing after Thanksgiving. He said he believes the city “can weather this storm without draconian budget cuts that jeopardize public safety and our quality of life.”

Mr Adams said in a television interview the day before the cuts were announced that he would not allow a hiring freeze to damage his efforts to reduce crime.

“I’m not going to do anything that will endanger public safety,” he said.

His spokesman, Charles Kretchmer Lutvak, said Monday that the state and federal government “can help prevent these cuts by providing the funding needed to protect these vital city services.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul This was told by journalists on Monday that she was looking for ways to help the city close the budget gap. ‘The city must be safe’ she said. “I will work with the mayor to ensure that this succeeds.”

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which for years has accused mayors of increasing the police budget at the expense of other agencies, said migrants are being made into scapegoats and that the budget deficits “reflect a failure of leadership. ”

She doubted that the police would actually receive a serious blow.

“The NYPD is very adept at avoiding cuts,” Ms. Lieberman said. “If the past is prologue, skepticism is appropriate.”

James Essig, who retired as chief of detectives in September, said it’s hard to believe the city would freeze classes when the department is struggling to recruit and when more officers are retiring or leaving for other agencies.

New recruits help fill the “two most essential parts of the police”: the local police station and the detective teams, he said.

Freezing classes would force the department to absorb veteran officers from specialized units and return them to the police department, he said, predicting that veteran officers would retire instead, he said.

In 1970, there were 38,000 police officers — including transit and housing officials — in a city of about 7.8 million, said Kenneth Corey, a former department chief. That number dropped to less than 30,000 in 1980. the Independent Budget Office said. The reduction in ranks, the result of a budget crisis that led to layoffs and turnover, was followed by one of the city’s worst bouts of crime, Mr. Corey said.

Now, the city’s population is approximately 8.3 millionand police responsibilities have also increased, he said.

“There are increasing demands placed on police officers charged with preventing and responding to terrorism,” Mr Corey said. “Can you take them out?”

Cuts to other city services could worsen the crisis, said Brandon del Pozo, a retired New York police officer and assistant professor at Brown University.

“If you cut funding for mental health care, substance abuse prevention and housing, the cascading effects will certainly impact crime,” he said. “There are so many safety nets that keep people out of jail who are also on the chopping block.”

The city’s budget crisis is real, and next year’s budget deficit could be too higher than the mayor’s estimate of $7 billion, perhaps closer to $10.6 billionsaid Andrew Rein, chairman of the Citizens Budget Commission, an independent watchdog.

Sal Albanese, a former city council member and mayoral candidate, said he did not think the cuts would affect President Biden, who has a tense relationship with the mayor, because the president does not need Mr. Adams politically. The City Council would likely allow the cuts to take effect and let the mayor take the blame, he said.

“When you cut quality of life services like police and sanitation, those are important to the city’s tax base,” Mr. Albanese said. “You don’t want people moving because of crime and filth.”

Political leaders could feel the consequences at the ballot box, Mr. del Pozo said.

“There is a long history of using the police capital count as a way to play chicken with the city budget,” he said. “There is a long history of electoral consequences if you are the one ultimately blamed for destroying a police station.”

Chelsia Rose Marciusreporting contributed.