The New York City Police Department (NYPD) will transition some 600 plainclothes anti-crime officers to other assignments including neighborhood policing and detective work, the NYPD commissioner said on Monday.
At a press conference at the NYPD headquarters in Lower Manhattan, Commissioner Dermot Shea said it is "a seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city."
Officers of the anti-crime unit specialize in undercover operations and perform patrol services in unmarked vehicles, in an attempt to spot criminals of usually violent crimes.
The unit has caused some tension between the NYPD and the community. According to The New York Times, it has been involved in some of the city's most notorious police shootings.
The overhaul is also "in the realm of closing one of the last chapters of stop-question-and-frisk," said Shea, referring to a controversial policing practice that often targets minorities.
"What we always struggle with, I believe, as police executives, is not keeping crime down -- it's keeping crime down and keeping the community working with us," said the commissioner.
"I think it's time to move forward and change how we police in this city. We can do it with brains. We can do it with guile. We can move away from brute force," he added.
The announcement came after weeks of protests against police brutality in the city, during which a number of officers were disciplined for using heavy-handed tactics toward largely peaceful protesters, and one was charged with assault, criminal mischief, harassment and menacing for shoving a woman to the ground.
However, Shea noted on Monday that it is a policy shift "coming from me personally" instead of any reflection on NYPD officers, adding that discussions about the overhaul had occurred for about a year.
Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a police reform agenda that would ban chokeholds by police and allow for transparency of offices' disciplinary records, among other reforms.
