Federal monitor reveals NYPD failed to audit thousands of Community Response Team stops despite court order
The Community Response Team, established in 2023 with a history of aggressive tactics and hundreds of civilian complaints, operated with significant opacity. In 2025 alone, more than 900 of the unit's 1,400 recorded stops were not properly reviewed.
The New York City Police Department has failed to conduct required audits on over 2,000 stop-and-frisk incidents carried out by its Community Response Team over the past three years, breaching a federal court order mandating such oversight. This failure was recently disclosed by the department's federal monitor, Mylan Denerstein, who oversees the department's compliance with the 2013 stop-and-frisk decision.
The oversight gap specifically affected the CRT, a unit established in 2023 that has drawn hundreds of civilian complaints and a history of unconstitutional policing. In 2025 alone, more than 900 of the unit's 1,400 recorded stops were not properly reviewed. Prior to this discovery, the monitor's own figures on the CRT's constitutional compliance rate were likely inaccurate, with the actual rate of lawful stops being lower than previously reported.
The failure to audit stems from a restructuring of the CRT last autumn, which moved officers across the city under a central command but inadvertently left stops unaudited for the entire unit of approximately 180 officers. Before this change, the failure affected only a portion of the unit led by top brass for the first two and a half years of its existence. The operational opacity was exacerbated by a setup where officers were often not formally assigned to the unit, leading former officials to describe the team as consisting of "ghosts" that were difficult to oversee.
Federal monitor Mylan Denerstein stated that the lack of review means unconstitutional stops, frisks, and searches by the CRT likely went undetected. "The failure to audit these stops means unconstitutional stops, frisks and searches went undetected," Denerstein said in a statement. "This is unacceptable. The City must do more and prevent this from happening." The NYPD stated that under Commissioner Jessica Tisch, it has taken significant additional steps to increase oversight and accountability and is working with the Monitor to address the error.
Civil rights advocates, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, and lawmakers, such as State Sen. Jessica Ramos, are calling for the disbandment of the CRT due to its history of misconduct and lack of oversight. Sen. Ramos noted that a unit with this record should not continue, while lawyers at the NYCLU stated there is no basis for such units given their long history of aggressive policing against people of color.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani's office declined to comment on specific calls to disband the unit, stating only that the administration is aware of the issues and committed to improving public safety. When the CRT started three years ago, it focused on cracking down on illegal motorcycles and roamed the city proactively looking for crime, quickly developing a reputation for brutality alongside its opaque operations.
