@streetsblognyc: In 2024, then-State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani spoke at a memorial for his Astoria neighbor, cyclist Amanda Servedio, who was killed by the driver of a speeding pickup truck three blocks from her home on October 22 of that year. The driver was attempting to evade police pursuing him for a burglary at a nearby construction site when he blasted through a red light and fatally hit Servedio on 34th Avenue. In the aftermath of Servedio’s killing, reporting from Streetsblog and the City Reporter revealed that the NYPD’s chase rate exploded after former Mayor Adams took office — the result of an apparent decision by NYPD top brass to encourage more aggressive policing. Former NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell has sounded almost proud of the practice. Last year, he touted vehicular pursuits as a sign of effective policing. “With the enforcement of more moving summonses and car stops, and people thinking they can take off on us? Those days are over,” Chell said. “So yes, vehicle pursuits are up.” Of the 2,278 police chases in 2024, 25 percent “resulted in some combination of a collision, property damage, or physical harm,” the NYPD said in a statement. A police source said there were about a dozen fatalities following chases. Data also shows that the 114th Precinct in Astoria had undertaken the seventh-most chases in the city during that time period, despite low crime numbers — an island of bad behavior in an otherwise quiet area. Less than a month after Servedio was killed, Mayor Adams appointed Jessica Tisch as the new commissioner of the NYPD. Tisch created a clear new policy within the NYPD’s patrol guide to dramatically roll back the soaring number of chases, stopping cops from pursuing suspects for traffic infractions, violations, or non-violent misdemeanors. As Tisch begins her second year at the helm of NYPD — under that former Queens Assemblymember, now Mayor Mamdani — we’ll continue to look at the impact of that chase policy change and how the NYPD under Tisch and Mamdani respond to (or exacerbate) traffic violence in New York City. #nypd #policechase #mamdani #astoria #nyc

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Thursday 22 October 2026 13:31:02 GMT