Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced on Tuesday that the NYPD will divide the Bronx into two patrol boroughs, allowing the department to bring more cops and resources in to keep the borough’s streets and residents safe.
The announcement came during her State of the NYPD address on Feb. 10 at Cipriani in Midtown, hosted by the New York Police Foundation. The annual speech touches upon current police affairs, as well as plans set for the future. Mayor Zohran Mamdani was among the dignitaries in attendance for Tisch’s big speech.
Patrol boroughs are NYPD commands that manage local police precinct operations and supervise uniformed officer operations. There are currently eight patrol boroughs in the city, but to date, just the Bronx and Staten Island have one patrol borough each for its respective precincts.
Tisch said that will change for the Bronx starting this spring. The NYPD will create Patrol Boroughs Bronx North and Bronx South to manage the eight precincts covering the borough’s operations.
More than just mere operational restructuring, Tisch added that the NYPD will bring in almost 200 additional police officers to the borough. These cops will be utilized by adding specialized units into the borough, including homicide squad detectives, evidence collection teams, narcotics teams, Neighborhood Safety Teams, and auto crime units.
Tisch explained that splitting the Bronx patrol borough into two was about increasing safety and finally bringing the borough of 1.4 million residents up to the same level of policing as Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, each of which have two patrol borough operations.
“For too long, the Bronx has experienced more crime per capita than any other borough while operating under a structure that hasn’t kept pace with the demands placed on it,” Tisch said. “Bronx residents have raised this issue for years. They’re not asking for special treatment. They’re asking a reasonable question about fairness and capacity: why does a borough this large still operate under a structure that wouldn’t be acceptable elsewhere in the city? And they’re right to expect better.”
Tisch noted that in 2025, the Bronx accounted for more than one-third of both shooting incidents and shooting victims citywide, about three times more than Manhattan and Queens. The Bronx also had more than one million calls for help last year.
Turning to citywide matters, Tisch also pledged to overhaul the current 311 system to better respond to quality-of-life complaints.
“Requests coming in through 311 were often assigned through long text chains and phone calls. Supervisors tracked jobs by hand, and officers didn’t always have a clear picture of what was assigned, what was still open, or who was responsible for follow-up,” Tisch said. “And then we wonder why so many 311 calls for things like blocked driveways, abandoned cars, excessive noise, and more went unanswered.”
In an effort to streamline the process, Tisch will be developing a new digital dispatch system for 311 calls assigned to the NYPD’s Q-Teams to ensure responses are handled with the same level of structure and accountability as 911 jobs. Officers will be able to better track, respond to, and close out 311 jobs, protecting the quality of life for all New Yorkers.
In addition to the 311 overhaul, the Commissioner also pledged to increase training for cops, de-escalation, constitutional policing, legal standards, situational awareness, and more that will continue throughout their careers.
