Mayor de Blasio gives remarks on school safety (photo: Rob Bennett/Mayor's Office)

Amid protests spurred by the police killing of George Floyd, activists from Minneapolis to Chicago to New York City are pushing to reduce the presence of police in schools, and a number of school districts are heeding their call.

Traffic Enforcement Agents take a knee

On Thursday, June 11, hundreds of New York City Traffic Enforcement Agents and Supervisors stopped work for eight minutes and 46 seconds to commemorate the tragic murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Employed by the NYPD, these members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) were participating in a nationwide CWA job action to support the massive protests sweeping the country on behalf of racial justice and an end to police violence.

Is it surprising that these NYPD employees staged a job action for

Another chapter between Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

A long-stalled bill meant to shed light on the surveillance equipment used by the NYPD has suddenly moved through the City Council with the support of Mayor Bill de Blasio, despite being virtually unchanged since the mayor and NYPD leaders raised dire alarms about it in recent years. Now de Blasio is breaking with his own police department, which he has maintained has been on board with a slew of recent changes to NYPD oversight and discipline in the wake of national

Police in schools (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

As the City Council is pushing to cut $1 billion from the NYPD’s $6 billion budget for next fiscal year, City Council Members Mark Treyger and Donovan Richards have proposed revoking the police’s role in school safety and restoring it to the Department of Education. The proposal has been a top priority for some police reform and education activists for years and has taken on renewed urgency in the wake of the countrywide protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Though Mayor

A father's account of his daughter's arrest (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)

What NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea described as “nearly flawlessly executed” police action recently in the Bronx was nothing less than a nightmare for my daughter and the other protestors who gathered there, as well as many of their loved ones like me. Those sworn to serve and protect in our city instead did the exact opposite and

Mayor and NYPD officials (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

In recent days, city and state officials have rushed to stand up an army of contact tracers, public health officials who will reach out to every COVID-19 patient in the state, asking intimate details about every person they’ve come into contact with for the past two weeks. In the hands of public health officials, this data will save lives. But if we let this same information fall into the hands of the police, it won’t just undermine our most important rights, it will set back the efforts to combat

Mayor de Blasio at an NYPD lot (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

Like other major cities reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, New York is facing a serious budget deficit and we have to make difficult choices about where to cut funding and where to redirect resources. This crisis has exposed the agonizing holes in our city’s social safety net like a raw nerve. We’ve been bombarded with news of the massive inequities faced by essential workers and low-income New Yorkers most at risk from the virus, the horrifying racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths, and our anemic personal

Mayor de Blasio with NYPD transportation (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

Streets and sidewalks make up a majority of New York City’s public space. Like the parks and open spaces that make up the rest of it, these spaces should serve a common good, accessible for all to travel, to play, and to protest without harm. But there is ample evidence that this is not a reality. 

Consider what happened when Mayor de Blasio cracked down on social distancing last month. Nine out of ten arrested for walking, standing, or sitting too

New York City Hall (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)

New York City has slowly turned the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic and has just begun the first phase of reopening its economy. But despite the last few weeks of success in curtailing the public health crisis, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s leadership has left many frustrated and looking elsewhere. He has been criticized for providing too little clarity and few plans to the public about various health, social, and economic pieces of the city’s larger recovery puzzle, often proving reactive

NYPD officers (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)

More than two dozen New York political clubs and civic organizations have come together to announce new demands on elected officials and candidates for office, attempting to sway the accelerating police reform conversation reignited by the killing of George Floyd.

The clubs will refuse to endorse candidates who accept donations from police unions or do not support major budget cuts to New York’s City and State police forces, among other planks, according to a letter being made public by the

The NYPD budget is in the spotlight, but what's in it (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

The daily protests in New York City over police brutality and racism bore fruit this weekend as Mayor Bill de Blasio reversed course, announcing that he would cut police department funding and institute other reforms at the NYPD. The State Legislature also took notice and expedited a long list of police accountability and transparency measures that had languished for years.

Over the last ten days, as the protests swelled across the city and the NYPD responded

Thursday evening in Brooklyn (photo: Ethan Geringer-Sameth/Gotham Gazette)

A tense standoff between peaceful marchers and police on a brownstone-lined block in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn could have turned violent Thursday night, if it was not for the intervention of local elected officials on the ground who negotiated the peaceful release of protesters corralled by cops intent on enforcing the mayor’s curfew.

What began as a large march that set off from Barclays Center shortly after the 8 o'clock curfew numbered in the hundreds

Police officers take the oath (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Mayor de Blasio with Police Commissioner Shea & other NYPD officials (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

As Mayor Bill de Blasio struggles with the protests against police brutality and racism that have gripped New York City over the past few days, he has promised that NYPD officers will be swiftly disciplined for any misconduct in their response to protesters and that larger structural changes to police accountability are on the way. But the NYPD has been slow to reform its opaque internal disciplinary processes over the years, and has even missed self-imposed deadlines

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

June 03, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez on Prosecuting Protests and Police Misconduct

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez joined the show to discuss how his office is monitoring unrest in New York City, handling charges against individuals arrested for various alleged crimes during

Mayor de Blasio and the NYPD (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Earlier this week, after nearly six-and-a-half years in office and repeatedly failing to meaningfully and systematically hold his own police department accountable for brutalizing and killing black New Yorkers, Mayor de Blasio took to Twitter to express outrage about Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd.

De Blasio forcefully demanded swift action by authorities in a city half-way across the country. He then proceeded to fail completely to stop police brutality in his

Mayor de Blasio & city officials in Borough Park in January (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

[UPDATE (5/19/20): After this story was published, an NYPD spokesperson told Gotham Gazette security cameras had been installed at 30 locations in Brooklyn as part of an effort to combat anti-Semitic hate crimes. The remaining 70 cameras planned to be deployed with the input of the community have likely been put on hold due to the coronavirus outbreak, the spokesperson said.]

Mayor Bill de Blasio in January announced 100 new

Police officers have been charged with social distancing enforcement (photo: NYPD)

Mayor Bill de Blasio has made the New York City Police Department the agency primarily responsible for ensuring social distancing in public amid the coronavirus outbreak, and while police data shows enforcement is taking place primarily in black and Hispanic communities, the city has not disclosed any official enforcement policies or guidance given to officers.

In recent weeks, de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea have made vague references to

Policing during a pandemic (photo: @NYPDnews)

As we face one of the most pressing global health crises in over a century, New York City continues to use ineffective and, at times, discriminatory policing practices. For evidence that they aren’t working, one need look no further than the controversy regarding the de Blasio administration’s clumsy attempt to manage the crowd attending the funeral of Rabbi Chaim Mertz, a revered leader of Williamsburg’s Orthodox Jewish community. For even more recent proof, there's the disturbing video of an incident in lower Manhattan that started with

Council Member Helen Rosenthal, second from right, and other Council members (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)

With New Yorkers sheltering at home during the coronavirus outbreak, advocates, experts, and elected officials are worried that domestic violence incidents could spike across the city but go unreported as victims find it nearly impossible to escape their abusers. On Friday, the New York City Council will hold a digital hearing to glean some clarity on the situation, particularly about how the de Blasio

Mayor & Speaker at a coronavirus briefing (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday gave New York City officials a 24-hour deadline to provide plans for enforcing social distancing in public spaces as the coronavirus continues to rage through the city and the governor said there was too much group activity in the five boroughs under his “pause” orders. Mayor Bill de Blasio has since announced some of the measures his administration is taking but his approach differs from what the New York City Council under Speaker Corey

Mayor de Blasio checks out an NYPD body camera (photo: Rob Bennett/Mayor's Office)

A new report by the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board shows body-worn cameras have helped the police watchdog close hundreds of misconduct cases by substantially improving its ability to prove and disprove allegations. While CCRB officials believe the technology has become an indispensable tool, it has also presented new challenges for the agency as it seeks greater transparency from the NYPD.

The report, released Thursday, is the first of its kind on the

NYPD tabletop meeting (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayoral Photography Office)

As advocates of mass incarceration slowly realize they are losing their grip on political power, they are flailing to find new strategies to undermine the state’s recent bail reforms. Under the media-driven, police union-inspired, fear campaign against reform, many advocates of the carceral state are pushing a new form of confinement: ...

the Mayor, the NYPD & cameras (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

In response to an increase in reported anti-Semitic hate crimes and violent attacks, New York City and State are simultaneously implementing a permanent increase in surveillance in several predominantly Orthodox Jewish communities.

The new surveillance technology -- including 100 new NYPD cameras and state-funded cameras and license plate readers -- comes after high-profile attacks in Jersey City and Monsey in the final weeks of 2019 and a multi-year increase in reported hate

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

January 22, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: The Rise in Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes

Former City Council Member David Greenfield, now CEO of Met Council, joined the show to discuss the recent rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes, how it has impacted Orthodox Jewish communities, what is being done about the troubling trend and what else needs to