“If he wins, I’m quitting.”
That’s the mood inside the NYPD as Zohran Mamdani — a socialist and the frontrunner in New York’s mayoral race — cruises toward Election Day.
Multiple outlets report a growing number of officers, speaking privately, are threatening to resign in response to Mamdani’s record and policy proposals — particularly his calls for changes in police funding, oversight, and discipline.
As Olivia Reingold of The Free Press reported, the cracks in morale are already showing:
Other NYPD cops also told me that they are considering retiring if Mamdani, who once advocated for “a socialist city council to defund the NYPD,” wins the election. Polls show Mamdani with a double-digit lead. Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo raked in nearly $400,000 in the days after incumbent mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race, but that’s still far less than Mamdani has.
The NYPD is the largest police department in the United States, with 33,740 uniformed officers, but it’s facing a manpower crisis that has grown even worse in recent months, said Bill Bratton, who was police commissioner for mayors Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, and progressive Democrat Bill de Blasio. That is the fewest number of officers in the department since 1994. This year is on track to have one of the highest attrition rates of the past decade, according to data from the Police Benevolent Association, the largest NYPD union.
Over the past year, the NYPD has lowered its selection criteria, temporarily waived application fees, and cut the minimum age for recruits from 21 to 20 years and six months. Those moves show how hard it has become to fill the ranks. Bratton, who might be best known for advocating “broken windows” policing—in which cops target minor crimes such as vandalism and fare evasion—told me that a Mayor Mamdani would only accelerate the police force brain drain.
“There will be a very significant exodus from the NYPD very soon after his election, if he is elected,” said Bratton. “They’re going to leave. And that’s a reality.”
Police unions have raised similar concerns publicly, warning about the effect of oversight reforms on recruitment and retention.
Resignations are already climbing. According to the Daily Caller, 1,555 NYPD officers filed for retirement by July 5 — a 48% increase over the 1,049 who left in the same period the previous year, and a 65% jump from a decade ago, when 941 retired.
One report even claimed that as many as 40% of NYPD officers might consider resigning if Mamdani is elected mayor.
Even if only a fraction of those officers walk away, the fallout would be huge — strained NYPD capacity, increase workloads for the cops left behind, sinking morale, and a recruitment crisis that only gets worse.
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How did we get here, where a DemocRAT Socialist is on the verge of becoming the Mayor of one of America’s largest cities ? Can voters be that stupid and self serving ? I think they can be. Just look at Illinois and Chicago for example. The Governor is a corrupt fraud, and Chicago’s Mayor comes off as a DEI elected idiot !!
Why would they stay and work for a Communist Muslim Democrat that they know for certain will throw them under the bus?
Then see tourism drop $$$ Bye bye NYE & Macys Parade
Imagine a department with only Captains and above and rank and file averaging less than 5 years on. All the expertise gone, and a Mayor who hates your guts. Sounds like a winner…not.