Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday the police department had strengthened its accountability systems after a police officer was allowed to retire before facing a disciplinary trial in the death of a teenager.
Mr. Mamdani also ordered the police to conduct a review of its use of force policies, which were at the heart of an oversight panel’s decision to recommend excessive force charges against Officer Salvatore Alongi in the 2024 death of 19-year-old Win Rozario.
“When the government uses force against a New Yorker, the standards of accountability must be the highest,” Mr. Mamdani said in a statement. “Every New Yorker deserves to know that force will be used lawfully, carefully and only when necessary. »
A police spokesperson referred questions to City Hall and provided no further comment.
Changes in departmental procedures aim to improve transparency in cases of use of force. A release from City Hall says police will formalize practices such as providing final reports to families and their representatives and notifying the state when an officer retires while disciplinary action is pending.
“This will help prevent officers who leave the NYPD while facing serious disciplinary charges from escaping scrutiny by being hired by another law enforcement agency in New York State,” the mayor’s office said in a press release.
Mr. Mamdani also announced he would increase funding for the Office of the Inspector General, another police watchdog, and ensure the department complies with other laws on reporting police-involved deaths.
Monday’s announcement came as the mayor faced criticism from his base for not doing enough to transform public safety — a pledge he made during his mayoral campaign.
Tensions further escalated last week when Democratic Socialists of America called on the mayor to fire Jessica S. Tisch, the police commissioner, after the shooting of a Dominican man in the Bronx by federal immigration agents. Federal officials said the man, Oscar Belgal, had been the subject of a series of arrests and had “indirect or indirect knowledge” of a shooting that injured an off-duty customs officer in Manhattan in July 2025. Mr. Belgal accelerated when officers approached his vehicle, they added.
The new measures, the mayor’s office said, were a response to Mr. Rozario’s killing and the department’s failure to inform the review board prosecuting Officer Alongi’s case that he was about to retire.
Last September, the Civilian Complaint Commission voted to support claims that Officers Alongi and Matthew Cianfrocco used excessive force when they fatally shot Mr. Rozario in Queens after police said he lunged at them with scissors. A few days later, Ms. Tisch recommended that the charges be brought to an administrative trial. In December 2025, Letitia James, the Attorney General, declined to file criminal charges against Officers Alongi and Cianfrocco.
In August, the CCRB asked the police about Mr. Alongi’s status and learned that he had retired in May, preventing the administrative proceeding against him from moving forward, according to the committee and a timeline of events provided by the police.
Under an agreement between the agencies, it is the police department’s responsibility to notify the oversight board when an officer facing departmental charges requests retirement. In these cases, the review board can then expedite the prosecution, before the police officer’s pension is finalized.
Following the announcement of Mr Alongi’s retirement, Ms Tisch said the failure was the result of “human error” and apologized for it.
“When we make a mistake, we must own up to it,” she said in a statement.
After the communication failure came to light, police implemented a new notification system to “facilitate the completion of the disciplinary process before an officer retires,” according to the mayor’s office.
However, Notan Eva Costa and Francis Rozario, Mr Rozario’s parents, said they were “disgusted” when they learned the police officer accused of misconduct in their son’s death could no longer be prosecuted.
“We are disgusted by Commissioner Tisch’s response to our family, revealing that the NYPD let Alongi retire with a full pension, without facing trial,” family members said in a statement released by the Justice Committee, an advocacy group.
Dakota Gardner, a spokeswoman for the Civilian Complaint Commission, said the trial of Mr. Cianfrocco, the other officer facing departmental charges, “will continue as scheduled.”
Loyda Colón, executive director of the Justice Committee, said the changes “do not address what New Yorkers, including Win Rozario’s family, need and deserve.”
“The problem is not that the NYPD needs more training or to overhaul its policies, but that the department consistently evades oversight, transparency and meaningful change,” Mx said. » Colon said in a statement.
Patrick Hendry, president of the police union, said there should be no review of use-of-force policies and called the CCRB’s recommendations in the case “blatantly biased.”
“The mayor’s radical base wants a total dismantling of the NYPD and it is clear that this announcement is an attempt to appease them,” Mr. Hendry said in a statement. “It won’t work and it won’t make New Yorkers safer.”
Maria Cramer reports contributed.
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