Rebooted NYPD Anti-Gun Units Return To Streets, Controversy

NEW YORK CITY — Revamped anti-gun NYPD units took to the streets Monday with a top-level promise they won't repeat discriminatory past "mistakes" that scuttled their predecessors.

NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell last week announced new "Neighborhood Safety Teams" will be deployed in 25 police commands plagued by gun violence. Eventually, they'll be in 30 precincts, she said.

"These teams are there for gun violence, they're there for criminal activity, but they look police officers," she said. "They are not in plainclothes, the uniform clearly states on the back 'NYPD Police.' They are there for the safety of the community, and to get the violent offenders off the streets."

Sewell's promise that the teams won't be in plainclothes likely was meant to reassure community advocates, who fear a revival of controversial anti-crime units.

Those units were disbanded by former Mayor Bill de Blasio amid years of accusations of aggressive tactics, outright brutality and racist policing against Black and Brown New Yorkers.

Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain, repeatedly pledged to revive the units to tackle violent crime, albeit with changes.

The revamped teams form a major plank in Adams' strategy against gun violence, but advocates are still wary they'd quickly return to past abuses.

“No matter whether these units are uniformed or in plain clothes, or whether they are called Anti-Crime or 'Neighborhood Safety Teams,’ what matters most is that Mayor Adams ensures that these officers conduct themselves lawfully to respect the constitutional rights of the people they are policing," attorneys for The Legal Aid Society said in a statement. "When NST officers commit acts of misconduct, City Hall must swiftly hold them to account. Otherwise, these teams will run roughshod through the city - likely in our clients’ neighborhoods - with impunity, employing the same hyper-aggressive policing tactics of their troubled past."

Sewell and NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey said the units will undergo seven days of training before they're deployed.

Corey said the five-member units will attend training as team that focuses on minimal force techniques, advanced tactics, car stops and "constitutional policing."

"De-escalation is central to all of it," he said. "Communication skills is a big part of it."

Adams last week said the units will focus on areas that account for 80 percent of the city's gun violence. He said the units' deployments were delayed in order to perform proper training.

"We have to get this right," he said. "If you expeditiously have people in specialized units hit the streets without a very thorough well organized training you're really going to exacerbate the problem and I'm not going to do that."

The 30 precincts include the majority of the Bronx, a large portion of Central and Eastern Brooklyn, northern Staten Island, several Queens neighborhoods and most of Washington Heights and Harlem in Manhattan.

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Plainclothes NYPD Unit Hitting The Streets 'Within A Week': Adams