by Eric Umansky

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In the fall of 2022, the New York Police Department began posting videos online to promote one of its latest initiatives: the Community Response Team, an elite unit formed under the city’s new mayor, Eric Adams.

Punctuated by dramatic music and quick cuts, the first video, dubbed “True Blue NYPD Finest,” looked like the TV show “Cops.” Officers run and shout as they chase people joyriding on motorbikes and ATVs.

One points a Taser at a motorcyclist and his passenger. Others tackle a rider, pinning him to the ground. Still others chase a motorbike onto the sidewalk, endangering nearby pedestrians.

Within the NYPD, department officials were disturbed by what they saw. “I threw red flags,” said Matthew Pontillo, a former chief who noted what he called “constitutional concerns” in the footage. But Pontillo and two former department executives say that when they raised the videos and the officers’ conduct with one of the unit’s leaders, he pushed back and complained to an unlikely party: the mayor himself.

If Adams was troubled by the unit’s actions, he hasn’t shown it. Instead, for more than two years, the mayor has repeatedly championed the CRT and his allies who run it, even as NYPD officials have warned its policing has been too aggressive.

In 2023, for example, Pontillo wrote a scathing internal audit after finding that some CRT officers were wrongfully stopping New Yorkers and failing to document the incidents. Weeks later, the mayor took to Instagram to boost the unit. “Turning out with the team,” he wrote, showing a photo of him wearing a wide smile and khaki pants, CRT’s official uniform.

The mayor has been so closely connected to the unit, former senior officials said, that at one point he had special access to a livestream of the team’s body-worn cameras.

“The unit effectively reported directly to City Hall,” recalled a former top NYPD official with direct knowledge of the interactions, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal. “If you raised concerns, they would go directly to the mayor. All the time. It was insanity.”

In a few instances, after getting a call from one of the unit’s leaders, the mayor questioned department lawyers who objected to officers’ actions, another former official recalled. In one case, the mayor demanded to know the name of the lawyer and asked whether they were stating the law or just their opinions. The CRT leader, Kaz Daughtry, then ignored the lawyer’s objections, the official said. (Daughtry said he always cooperated with department lawyers.)

The dynamic underscores a central irony around policing during the Adams administration: As a former police captain, Adams railed against the injustices of gung-ho policing; but as the mayor, he has embraced a unit that perpetuates it.

Within the department, Adams’ views are clear. “Our mayor has given us the mandate to start playing offense out here,” one of CRT’s other leaders, John Chell, told a local TV station in 2023, months after the promotional videos.

The CRT has played a central role in carrying out Adams’ public safety priorities, from breaking up college campus protests to cracking down on illegal motorcycles and shuttering unlicensed cannabis shops.

The fallout for New Yorkers has been significant.

An officer chasing unlicensed motorcyclists killed a rider after swerving into him, body-camera footage shows. A commander punched a driver and kicked him in the head, according to cellphone video posted to social media. Officers stopped a young man without apparent cause, according to the audit, and, when he complained, a supervisor slammed him into a car window.

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The questionable conduct has sometimes extended into the bizarre. In November, a CRT officer repeatedly grabbed and squeezed a man’s genitals without searching him elsewhere, according to an investigation by the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board that was obtained by ProPublica. Police then cited the man for littering.

“When you put your thumb on the scale, it tips the culture,” Pontillo said. “And that starts with the mayor.”

Adams declined to be interviewed for this story. A mayoral spokesperson provided a statement that said, in part, “While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to public safety and we are always working to improve operations, CRT has been an important addition to the NYPD’s mission to ensure community members are both safe and feel safe.” She added that the mayor has always instructed the team to follow the guidance of department lawyers.

ProPublica interviewed more than a dozen former and current members of the NYPD, reviewed internal department records and watched video footage of several police encounters.

As Adams faces calls to resign over federal corruption charges, our reporting provides a new window into how the mayor has wielded power — and whom he’s entrusted to carry out his vision for public safety.

Among them are Daughtry and Chell, longtime leaders of the CRT. The two are........

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