How New York’s Mayoral Hopefuls Would Change the N.Y.P.D.

Some candidates in the Democratic primary want to cut $1 billion or more from the police budget, while others have more moderate proposals, frustrating activists.

When the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty this week of murdering George Floyd, the Democrats running for mayor of New York City, unsurprisingly, offered a unanimous chorus of support. The two leading moderates in the race — Andrew Yang and Eric Adams — said that justice had been delivered, but that the verdict was only the first step toward real police accountability. Maya Wiley and Scott Stringer, two left-leaning candidates, seized the moment more overtly, appearing with other mayoral hopefuls at a rally at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the site of many of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. “For once, we got a little bit of what we deserve — to be seen as people who deserve to breathe,” Ms. Wiley said to a crowd, within hours of the verdict.