NYC’s New Mayor Wants to Disband the SRG — and Replace Officers With Residents Wielding Clipboards.

New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani (in office since Jan. 1, 2026) is sticking to his pledge to dismantle the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG) — Yes, the tactical unit that tends to appear whenever New York is rioting, spiraling, or simply being New York at a high volume and the city's anti terrorist unit.

In other words, the new administration’s early vibe is: “Less riot gear, more feelings.”

Now here is the little gem you didn't asked for:

While city leadership talks about cutting back policing functions, the NYPD is still dealing with morale and churn. A John Jay survey reported by left leaning Gothamist found about a quarter of NYPD officers surveyed were actively looking to leave.
Meanwhile, the new mayor went full stop on hiring an additional 4,000 new officers and drastically reduced the police over time.

So New York is basically running two narratives at once:

• City Hall: “We should stop sending cops to everything.”
• A chunk of the force: “Cool. Some of us are trying to stop being cops.”

And yes — the “less cops for nonviolent calls” piece is real: Mamdani’s broader pitch includes creating a civilian-led Department of Community Safety around the $1 billion mark, designed to send mental health professionals / civilian teams to nonviolent emergency calls instead of police.

So the plan is not “no public safety.” It’s “public safety, but with fewer badges and more clipboards.” Because there is nothing more that a screaming New Yorker wants to see than 2 civilians holding clipboards and asking about his feelings.

#NotGoingToEndWell

The Defund Cinematic Universe: Other Cities Tried This… and the Plot Twist Was “Refund”

NYC isn’t inventing anything new. It’s just rebooting the franchise with a new cast and louder marketing.

Minneapolis: Tried to “replace” the police department — voters said “absolutely not”

Minneapolis put a major overhaul on the ballot in 2021 (replace the police department with a Department of Public Safety). Voters rejected it.
Translation: even the city where the slogan went national wasn’t ready to legally delete the police department.

Austin: Cut big… then state law and reality said “put it back”

Austin’s council voted in 2020 to cut/restructure a big chunk of the police budget.
By 2021, Austin passed a budget that increased police spending (in part because Texas law penalized cities for cutting police budgets).
Translation: “Defund” turned into “Re-fund, but call it compliance.”

Portland: Cuts were short-lived; funding came back

Portland is a textbook case of “we cut a little, then we added it back.” PBS reported Portland among cities adding funds back into police budgets. Wonder why.

Seattle: The city basically issued a statement saying “we’re done saying ‘defund’”

Seattle moved toward a diversified response model (including alternative crisis response capacity), but the political language shifted hard. In 2025, Seattle Council leadership pushed a resolution emphasizing fully supporting first responders while building diversified public safety (what in the F is that?)

— basically “defund is over, but alternatives stay.”

The big pattern across the country

Even where “defund” was loud in 2020, budgets often drifted back up later. A Mainstream News outlets analyzed multiple big cities and found police funding had increased due to the steady rise in crime in several places frequently cited as “defunded.” Meanwhile, some "advocates" argue the lasting win wasn’t the cuts — it was creating or expanding "civilian alternatives" (Seattle/Austin examples are frequently cited in that direction). Again not sure what the "civilian alternatives" are and what kind of liability that could present.

The takeaway

Mamdani is trying to do two things at once:

1. Disband SRG, a unit civil liberties groups describe as escalatory in "protest" policing and also a highly trained anti-terrorist department.
2. Build a $1B civilian safety department so cops aren’t the default responder for nonviolent crises in a city known to be rough around the edges and one that is facing financial strains.

The comedy is the timing: NYC is asking police to do less, while a meaningful slice of officers are already thinking about doing nothing at all (somewhere with better hours and less TikTok commentary).

And if NYC follows the “defund” path of other cities, here’s the safest prediction money can buy:

• There will be a cuts.
• There will be money, badly spent, $1 Billion to be exact.
• There will be a backlash.
• There will be a restore.
• And the whole thing will get rebranded as: “a holistic public safety modernization initiative.”