Grassroots, Advocacy and Legal Organizations Blast $225M Mega-Police Training Facility

Today, organizations from across the city delivered a joint letter to the City Council urging them to cut Mayor Adams' dangerous plan to build a ‘Public Safety Training Academy’ - i.e. a Cop City - from the FY25 Capital Budget. This mega training center is slated to be built in College Point, Queens and would cost the city at least $225 million dollars.

This Cop City project would consolidate the enforcement forces that are currently housed amongst 18 different city agencies (e.g. the Department of Sanitation Police, Homeless Services Police, the Administration for Children’s Services Police, Parks Enforcement, and others). This consolidation will more fully expand the NYPD’s already hyper-militarized tactics and policing practices and increase over-policing and criminalization which disproportionately affects Black, Latine and other communities of color. 

The letter signed by 33 organizations, with many representing communities most directly impacted by discriminatory policing and the NYPD’s most egregious tactics, reads: 

“Mayor Adams has made it clear that his go-to solution for NYC’s most pressing issues – the housing crisis, gun violence, and mental illness to name a few – is increased policing and criminalization. But his plan for NYC’s Cop City goes beyond anything we have seen before, pouring 100s of millions of dollars into a training facility that will mold all the city’s policy and enforcement arms after the NYPD, having them adopt NYPD’s aggressive policing tactics and their blatant disregard for oversight and accountability.” 

“This expansion of the use of policing as the primary strategy for addressing city issues, ones that often require social and public health solutions, will only further inequity and criminalization of Black, Latine and other communities of color, and decrease safety for New Yorkers.” 

The letter urges the council to cut Cop City from the FY25 Capital Budget for the sake of the safety and health of all New Yorkers. 

Click here to read the full letter. 

“Organizing to build power with community members in Queens who care about community safety, we know that building a police mega-training facility is not what our communities need and is a wasteful, dangerous use of our city’s resources while our neighborhoods and infrastructure remain under crisis. Under Mayor Adams, the level of NYPD violence and misconduct towards our communities continues to rise, as we see with the police killing of Win Rozario, all while he simultaneously takes steps to try to weaken police oversight and accountability.  This new Cop City project is extremely dangerous for all New Yorkers. We need to stop this project before it starts and protect New Yorkers from further harm,” stated CPR Spokesperson, Simran Thind, Community Organizer, DRUM

"Mayor Adams' plan for a 'Cop City' in Queens is a concerning and dangerous step backward for our communities. We envision a reality in which $225 million is invested in building out the classrooms, community centers, and affordable housing needed to empower our neighborhoods. We urge Mayor Adams’ and the City Council to prioritize investing in community-led alternatives that address the root causes of public safety issues," stated Marco A. Carrión, Executive Director of El Puente

"Under Mayor Adams, fatal shootings by the NYPD and complaints of NYPD misconduct are the highest they've been since 2012 and the lack of discipline and accountability for abusive officers has reached crisis levels, while the mayor has slashed the budgets for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, housing, healthcare, schools and other essential services our communities need for safety and well-being," stated Donavon Taveras (he/him), Justice Committee Community Safety Coordinator. "This is the context in which Mayor Adams wants to take out a $225million dollar loan to build an NYC Cop City - a move that will have devastating impacts on community safety by increasing the NYPD's influence over other agencies and expanding the use of carceral, militarized enforcement as the primary response to social and public health issues. The City Council must do everything in its power to ensure Cop City is cut from the FY25 capital budget."

“Under Eric Adams, New York City is an increasingly militarized place, where working New Yorkers are a problem to be controlled, not people to whom our elected officials are accountable. The decision to spend millions building a cop city in Queens while slashing funding from essential services is further proof of Mayor Adams’ cruel authoritarian agenda. We cannot let this mayor and his cronies turn our beloved city into a playground for the wealthy few where the rest of us are policed and punished for not having the basic things we need to thrive,” stated Audrey Sasson, Executive Director, Jews For Racial & Economic Justice.

"The New York City Department of Correction has been training at the NYPD headquarters for more than a year. Why should our City spend $225M more to do what they are already doing, and what reason is there to think that training with NYPD could do anything to address the brutality that characterizes DOC? Our City is facing a housing crisis, and the same people who could benefit from that housing are instead being funneled into Rikers by increasingly aggressive policing. We need our City Council to prevent the Mayor from using more money that should be serving the people to police us instead," said Darren Mack, Co-Director, Freedom Agenda.

"The Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club is proud to stand with Communities United for Police Reform in calling for major revisions to the proposed budget. We cannot continue to spend recklessly on overpolicing that targets minorities while ignoring the deep needs of our city in areas like public education and library services. The proposed budget represents Republican values, not the values of the Democratic Party," stated Allen Roskoff, President, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club.