Mayor Adams's vow to hire 5,000 new cops rightly exposes defunder

Mayor Eric Adams discusses the current safety of the city's subway system from inside the Broadway and West 42nd Street station. Matthew McDermott

Mayor Eric Adams deserves praise for his bold move to add 5,000 new cops to beef up a depleted NYPD — and so expose Zohran Mamdani’s anti-policing obsessions .

Adding 5,000 officers is a core vow by Andrew Cuomo , Mamdani’s chief rival in Tuesday’s election, because it addresses an obvious city need.

With fewer than 35,000 officers, the NYPD headcount is at its lowest since 1990 , when the city’s crime rate was at a high.

The ranks have been shrinking since 2019, thanks to retirements and an exodus to jobs elsewhere as New York politicians’ anti-policing agenda made working here ever-harder.

Officers are now hanging up their belts a