The Bronx was officially split into two distinct NYPD patrol commands on Wednesday, a restructuring designed to help reduce the borough’s high crime volume, Mayor Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced.
The Bronx accounts for more than a third of the city’s murders this year, but, except for Staten Island, every other borough in the city is split into two patrol commands, officials said.
“Today is long overdue, and a historic moment for the residents of the Bronx, for the officers doing this work, and for a borough that has carried one of the heaviest public safety burdens anywhere in the city,” Tisch said.
Mamdani said the second patrol command will provide the Bronx “with the same standards that Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan already have.”
“It’s about bringing a real commitment to lowering crime in this borough,” Mamdani told reporters on the steps of the new Bronx borough command headquarters at the former 40th precinct station house in Mott Haven.
Mamdani said the NYPD has “already made tremendous progress” in bringing crime down in the borough, noting that there was an 11% decline in major crime this year through Sunday and a 15% decline for the month of April.
Tisch said the restructuring is “not a response to failure” but a “decision to build on what is already working,” adding that the borough saw just four murders in April, the fewest in recorded history.
“Having two NYPD patrol borough commands adds essential resources to improve public safety throughout the entire Bronx,” District Attorney Darcel Clark said. “Additional police officers will help prevent crime and strengthen community ties, and localized investigators will enhance already exceptional crime-solving.”
“We must stem the violence that plagues the Bronx,” she said.
The Bronx has hosted 32 of the city’s 89 homicides, 36% of its shooting victims and 36% of its shooting incidents through Sunday, despite being the city’s fourth largest borough by population, NYPD stats show.
The city’s first murder of 2026 was in the Bronx, just before 7 a.m. on Jan. 1 when immigrant Uber driver, Issa Mbolo Isac was fatally shot in the head in what cops believe was a road rage incident after he got into a fender bender with his killer.
Mbolo Isac, 55, who was finishing up a late night shift when he was killed, was married with four children who live in Burkina Faso in West Africa, relatives said.
The city’s first shooting in the subway system this year was also in the Bronx. It took place inside the 170th St. station at E. 170th St. and Grand Concourse in Mount Eden at about 2:56 p.m. on Feb. 10, when 41-year-old Adrian Dawodu was shot and killed on the Manhattan-bound D and B platform, cops said.
An additional 200 officers will be assigned to the Bronx as it is divided into separate North and South borough commands. Patrol boroughs are commands that oversee local police precinct operations.
Assistant NYPD Chief Ben Gurley, who has led the Patrol Borough Bronx, will lead the borough’s new North command, and Assistant NYPD Chief Brian Hennessey, who previously served as the 40th precinct’s commanding officer, will lead the South command, Tisch said.
The North command, comprised of the 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 and 52 precincts will be headquartered out of the 48th precinct station house in Tremont and the South command, comprised of the 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 and 45 precincts will be headquartered at the former 40th precinct station house.
The department will also be adding specialized units into the borough this spring including homicide squad detectives, evidence collection teams, narcotics teams, neighborhood safety teams and auto crime units.
Last year, more than a third of the city’s shootings were in the Bronx, three times as many as in Queens and Manhattan, Tisch said. Nearly 1 million emergency calls also came from the Bronx last year — more than in Queens and equal to Manhattan’s total.
“This is about equity, and the residents of the Bronx receiving the same quality police service that every New Yorker deserves under this new model,” Tisch said.
The department will also be increasing uniformed officer presence in 72 of the highest crime “zones” across the city at night and in the early morning hours, when violence tends to spike, Mamdani said.
The mayor said that while the city historically sees spikes in violence as temperatures rise, “it doesn’t mean we have to surrender ourselves to it.”