Activists and city council members from the progressive caucus gathered on the steps of City Hall on March 1 for a rally calling for the disbandment of the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG) shortly before the New York City Council was set to hold an oversight hearing on the controversial unit.
The hearing was originally scheduled for December but had been postponed twice.
Activists and civil rights groups accuse the unit of using overly aggressive police tactics, especially during the protests following the death of George Floyd in the Summer of 2020. A report from the Department of Investigation, published in December 2020, details that the SRG used practices which may have provoked confrontations between police and protesters instead of de-escalating tense situations.
