(Bloomberg) -- The New York City Police Department relaunched a controversial gun crime task force this week, vowing not to engage in the sweeping dragnets and abuse that plagued previous iterations of the teams.
The so-called neighborhood safety teams will be deployed in about 30 precincts, including in eastern Brooklyn, northern Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens. Mayor Eric Adams, who campaigned on a pledged to revive the teams, said the officers will be uniformed but patrol in unmarked vehicles. Training took place in February, and the teams began patrols on Monday.
Adams said the teams were put together with community input, better training and more thorough vetting than in the past.
“I made the promise to New Yorkers on the campaign trail that we would put in place a specialized unit that would focus on gun crimes,” Adams said during a Wednesday press briefing at the NYPD police academy. “I also made the promise we would not repeat the mistakes of the past.”
Read more: NYC to revive controversial anti-crime unit
The previous version of the anti-crime task force was voluntarily disbanded by former NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea in the summer of 2020 as protests swirled over the murder of George Floyd and aggressive police tactics.
Adams, 61, who took office on Jan. 1, had made public safety his signature campaign issue, arguing that crime and disorder would continue to derail the city's pandemic recovery without fixes. Since then, a string of painful incidents have gripped the city, complicating his message and raising questions about what he can actually do to fight crime.
New York has recorded 217 shooting incidents so far in 2022, a 10.7% increase over the same period in 2021, and a 58.4% increase over the same period in the year 2020.
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