New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced last Friday, October 31, that he will add an investment in the updated financial plan for November to recruit 5,000 new police officers to the New York City Police Department (NYPD), bringing the total number of uniformed officers in the agency to 40,000. Independent mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo praised this move and criticized Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to cut police force.
According to the mayor’s office, the 40,000 officers will be the highest level in 20 years. Mayor Adams will invest $17.8 million in the upcoming fiscal year, and the investment will increase to $315.8 million by the 2029 fiscal year to support the phased hiring of 5,000 officers by July 2028.
The new hiring plan will commence in July 2026, with the initial hiring of 300 officers; increasing to 2,500 in July 2027; and reaching 5,000 new officers annually before July 2028. By then, the NYPD will be able to deploy approximately 40,000 officers on the streets to ensure the safety of New York City residents.
“Our government has always held the belief that public safety is a prerequisite for prosperity,” Adams said. “Over the past four years, not only have we reduced the crime rate to historic lows, but we have also successfully led New York City’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating that the investment we have made in safeguarding public safety is worthwhile.”
Cuomo commended Adams’s decision, expressing on X platform, “@Mayor Adams is absolutely right – deploying 5,000 new police officers brings us back to full strength.”
“Public safety is paramount, and it is time to reverse the damage caused by Mamdani and his colleagues’ calls for the city to slash police budgets,” Cuomo continued. “As mayor, I will ensure that this plan becomes a reality.”
In the mayoral election polls, Cuomo is narrowing the gap with the frontrunner Mamdani.
“Mamdani has stated his opposition to deploying more police officers,” Cuomo told the New York Post. “Now there are only two choices: either Mamdani knows more about public safety than Mayor Adams, who served as a police officer for 22 years, as well as mayor and district leader of Brooklyn, or he knows more about security than the police commissioner he thinks highly of, Jessica Tisch, who says we need to increase police by 5,000.”