NYPD facing massive summer workload as Mamdani flip-flops on police headcount

His cop-out is going to hurt.Mayor Zohran Mamdani caved to the left on the NYPD’s headcount — getting rid of a promised 580 new officers in the upcoming city budget — just as the stretched-thin force faces a “massive summer workload,” critics railed Tuesday.NYPD officials contended that’d make do without the new cops, but unions said the department’s nearly 35,000 headcount was already inadequate — as officers face extended shifts to cover a slew of high-profile events in the coming months.“The massive summer workload is just starting to hit, and police officers are already burning out and leaving by the hundreds,” said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry.“Mayor Mamdani needs to recognize that there is an even bigger staffing crisis looming, because our members have already been out of contract for nearly a year.He needs to sit down with us and work on ways to keep the cops we already have.”The nation’s largest police department has long faced a staffing crunch, with retirements outpacing new recruits every year since 2020.Many pols and NYPD leaders deemed the police pinch a crisis, but progressives and far-left activists haven’t been too concerned — arguing, at best, that the force is bloated.Mamdani, a democratic socialist true-believer who formerly called to “defund the police,” courted fellow lefties during last year’s mayoral election by promising to freeze the NYPD’s headcount at 35,000.But once in office, Mamdani flip-flopped on his campaign pledge and proposed within his executive budget to add the nearly 600 cops.

Lefties went apoplectic, holding a rally last week around City Hall calling for Mamdani to keep his promise.As budget negotiations went down the wire ahead of Tuesday’s deadline, Mamdani again pulled a 180.He walked back his plan to boost the ranks, blindsiding City Council Speaker Julie Menin late Monday as the pair firmed up a handshake agreement over the budget, sources said.Menin sai...