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

Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, center, is one of the authors (photo: @BrooklynDA)

Brooklyn is at a turning point for public safety and criminal justice reform. Through hard work, creativity, and trial and error, both law enforcement and citizen-powered organizations like East Brooklyn Congregations have achieved a sustained, historic drop in crime—but this year has seen troubling shifts. The recent spike in shootings and homicides – coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis – has thrown people

Charles, left, & Inez Barron, right, at a ceremony with the Mayor & others (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

Anything short of a revolution won’t satisfy Charles and Inez Barron, the married Brooklynites who hold seats in the State Assembly and City Council, respectively, and the police reforms and city budget passed in the wake of recent widespread Black Lives Matter protests serve merely as a distraction to their radical idea of Black-led politics. 

Assemblymember Charles Barron and City Council Member Inez Barron, both Democrats, have a

Aftermath of looting in the Bronx (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Growing up near New York City in the 1970s and ‘80s, the city seemed a terrifying place, full of gangs, muggers, and tabloid-worthy murders.  

By the time I moved to the city for work in the mid-’90s, however, it was in the midst of a transformation. The first two neighborhoods I lived in, in Manhattan, were Murray Hill and the East Village, and both initially had terrible reputations. Murray Hill featured street prostitutes and notorious single resident occupancy hotels,

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

When I joined the NYPD in 2013, I was an unlikely candidate for law enforcement.  Nearly a decade earlier, during the 2004 Republican National Convention, I was a passerby arrested at a protest in Union Square. At the invitation of the New York Civil Liberties Union, I joined a class action lawsuit against the City related to those widespread arrests. Then, for several years after graduating from Harvard Law, I worked at a law firm and volunteered as a board member at the Bronx Defenders, a

Mayor de Blasio & Commissioner Shea (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned the tactics and the timing of the police officers who dragged a protester alleged to have damaged several police cameras into an unmarked van on Tuesday. But the mayor did not say Thursday whether his police commissioner, Dermot Shea, felt the same way despite reporting having had two separate conversations on the subject.

In an incident that was caught on camera and quickly went viral Tuesday evening, plainclothes officers leapt out of a

De Blasio and Shea discuss public safety (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea are marooned on an island with few substantive details to sustain their claim that one of the biggest drivers of New York City's recent increase in gun violence is a pandemic-stalled court system.

The two have repeatedly offered largely unsupported claims that the coronavirus-related suspension of grand juries and a slow-down in gun offense prosecutions has made the courts a major contributor to the surge in shootings throughout the

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

Watching racial injustice at the forefront of our national conversation in recent weeks has inspired millions of people across the nation to leave their homes and get involved in our democracy — some for the first time ever. Together, people in New York City from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side to Jackson Heights have all said enough is enough. It is time for city leadership to stand up and respond. 

I am running for the New York City Council because I know we can do better than the system we

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)

July 22, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Jumaane Williams on Gun Violence & Police Reform

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams joined the show to discuss his recommendations for reducing gun violence in the city, the next steps on police reform, whether the mayor should replace his police commissioner, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax

Eric Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, at a recent press conference (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)

New York, and the nation, was teetering on the edge when it was suddenly and violently pushed over it on May 25, as George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota by police officer Derek Chauvin. It was an incident as shocking as it was familiar, an unarmed Black man dying at the hands of a police officer with the episode caught on video and broadcast to millions of people.

“I can’t breathe,” Floyd cried out, as Chauvin knelt on his

An NYPD command center (photo: Edward Reed/Mayor's Office)

In the four months since the NYPD first published protocols limiting its use of facial recognition software, the coronavirus-caused state of emergency and recent civil unrest over police brutality made the considerable leeway in the policy all but total. Absent any formal legal framework at the city, state or federal level, the internal, non-binding departmental protocols are the only public policy governing New York's lawless frontier of biometric surveillance.

The police department has insisted it

New NYPD officers (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography)

America is being confronted with a truth that Black communities have always known—cops lie. They tell big lies that send people to jail for life. They tell small, yet still extremely dangerous lies like the completely fabricated Shake Shack poisoning. Cops especially tell insidious lies to cover up acts

Police recruits (photo: mayor's office)

Almost a month ago I graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the premier college in the country for leaders in law enforcement. Today, I am taking the first steps to find a job in social work, convinced, like many people my age, that keeping my community safe has to start with compassion and respect, not violence.

I started like many other students at the college, ready to become a cop. My cousin is a state trooper, and my grandfather served in the military in the Dominican Republic. I love my family's

Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, right, at a community event (photo: @NYPDCommAffairs)

July 8, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: NYPD Chief Jeffrey Maddrey on Repairing Community Relations

New NYPD Community Affairs Bureau Chief Jeffrey Maddrey joined the show to discuss his perspective on his new job, building relationships between the police and New Yorkers, stemming a spike in gun violence, moving school safety from his bureau to the Department of Education, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you

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

The first day of the most recent chapter of protests against police brutality and racism in New York City was Thursday, May 28, the same night 500 National Guard troops were being deployed to Minneapolis, where rioters had set fire to a police station in the quarter where George Floyd was killed three days earlier.

Over the next three nights, violence -- toward police and the burning of NYPD vehicles, by aggressive officers toward protesters, and in the form of rampant

Council Member Cumbo (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

Defending her vote in support of a new city budget that did not cut NYPD funding by at least $1 billion (as New York City faces a $10 billion COVID-19-related revenue shortfall) Brooklyn City Council Member Laurie Cumbo told protesters criticizing the plan: "Work under the

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

July 1, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Police Reformers Dissatisfied with NYPD Moves in City Budget

Joo-Hyun Kang of Communities United for Police Reform joined the show to discuss police reformers' dissatisfaction with the new city budget in terms of NYPD funding and related decisions.

Listen to the conversation and let

A Black History Month celebration at Gracie Mansion (photo: Rob Bennett/Mayor's Office)

Activists plan to utilize Juneteenth, which each June 19 commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, as a way to continue momentum behind the Black Lives Matter movement. Advocates, Black elected officials, candidates for office, and others will rally, protest, and celebrate with events around the city, in continuation of the uprising reignited after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“Black joy is an act of resistance,” said Natasha

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

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

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