PICTURE HISTORY OF ‘SPECIAL PURPOSE’ NYPD UNITS TO POLICE PROTESTS & MORE
Riot police in St. Paul, Minnesota sexually-assaulting a complying protester during the first day of the Republican National Convention in 2008. A second after I captured this photograph, riot police shot my camera out of my hand with a 40mm “rubber bullet,” beat and falsely arrested me. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.
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NYPD's quick-reaction strike force may be history-once again.
The Strategic Response Group was formed by NYPD to deal with protests, mass shootings and terrorist attacks in 2015. It was responsible for mass false arrests, excessive force and many other civil rights violations during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. The City Council held a hearing to determine the future of the SRG on Wednesday. NYPD didn't bother to show up.
Here’s an example of SRG in action against peaceful protesters in 2020.
NYPD’s Strategic Response Group against nonviolent street protesters in 2020. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
Below is a review of NYPD special units past. The duties of most included policing protests. Many were disbanded when members did something that stirred public condemnation, only to be reconstituted under a new name later. For example, the Tactical Police Force was the 1960s version of today's SRG. Here's a look.
Mounted Police
NYPD's horse unit has always been used to regulate protests. Here's two photographs in the National Archive showing mounted NYPD officers responding to what the archive called an "Anarchist riot" in Manhattan at Broadway and 14th Street in 1908.
Bicycle Squad
In addition to horses, New York Police also had a bicycle squad as early as 1899, as this video in the National Archives of the NYPD's annual parade that year shows.
Motorcycle Squad
Motorcycles soon joined the horses. The NYPD's Motorcycle Squad became a general-purpose, heavy-duty unit for strikes and other protests. Some of its Indian motorcycles were mounted with M1895/14 Colt–Browning machine guns. Here's photographs of the squad from a May 1918 police parade in the National Archives.
One Man Riot Squad
One Man Riot Squad wasn't its official NYPD designation. Its official designation was the Industrial Squad. It was created by the NYPD in 1918 to monitor the labor movement. It was intended to "suppress violence and sabotage during strikes," according to Street Justice: A History of Police Violence in New York City.
It was led by John J. Broderick, a/k/a, the "One-Man Riot Squad." He reportedly didn't even carry a gun. His fits were his main weapon-and they were widely feared. He tangoed with tough guys of every stripe and always came out on top. Unions charged the Industrial Squad waged "guerilla warfare" against them-for corporations. Fiorello LaGuardia accused Broderick of extorting unions.
Anarchist Squad
Before it was the Bomb Squad, it was the Anarchist Squad. "It started life as the Police Department’s Italian Squad," according to New York Magazine.
NYPD Bomb Squad defusing a car bomb in Times Square, May 1, 2010. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
Tactical Police Force
In response to rising crime and civil unrest, the NYPD formed the Tactical Police Force in 1959. It was a "mobile striking force" trained in crowd control. The all-volunteer unit "had to be young, at least 6 feet tall and have high activity records as police officers,'“ one former TFP officer recalled.
They normally deployed in a "special 6 PM to 2 AM 4th platoon they patrolled high crime areas augmenting regular precinct patrols," according to Police NY. The TPF gained infamy for beating protestors occupying Columbia University in 1968, before being disbanded.
Tactical Narcotics Teams
Every New Yorker who grew-up in the 1980s remembers TNT. TNT was the NYPD's response to the murder of 22 year-old rookie Edward Byrne-assassinated by drug dealers guarding an informant in Queens. That's where it started after Byrne's South Jamaica murder in 1988.
Its goal was "to eliminate blatant drug trafficking in a clearly defined neighborhood," according to the NYPD's 1988 annual report. TNT teams flooded a selected area "with 'buy-and-bust- operatives for 30-90 days. To street pushers-as well as their suppliers and customers-the effect is like a thousand bolts of lightning, crashing down day and night on every street corner."
NYPD officers at a police-involved shooting on the Lower East Side in 2007. Although the NYPD’s Tactical Narcotics Team units were long-disbanded, one cop still rocked his old TNT colors. That’s how hardcore the unit was. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.
NYPD Commissioner Benjamin Ward's report said the TNT program worked so good it was expanded to all five boroughs: it "became the model for drug enforcement at the local level."
A new commissioner shifted to other strategies in the early 1990s, but new mayor Rudolph Guiliani brought the TNT teams back with a new name, SNAG-Strategic Narcotics and Gun Teams. "As of Monday, April 18, 1994, the policy of the New York Police Department will be one of No Tolerance for drug sellers and buyers at all times.”
Street Crimes Unit
The NYPD's Street Crimes Unit was formed in 1971. It racked up arrests with an 85% conviction rate. Deployed to high-crime areas, Street Crimes detectives dressed like residents and used police vehicles "carefully camouflaged to look like normal cars on the street," according to the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors accused it of racial profiling and it was disbanded in 2002.
Not soon enough for Amadou Diallo. Diallo was merely reaching for his identification when four NYPD street crimes cops triggered a barrage of 41 shots that killed the unarmed African immigrant. All four cops were charged, tried and acquitted.
Mayor Eric Adams resurrected the unit in 2022.
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