By Michele Evans / NYweeklyRecord.com / Date: 11/8/2026
Category: NYPD Accountability / Public Safety / Government Oversight / Worker Rights
NEW YORK CITY, NY –
Nearly half of the NYPD officers who worked the department’s private security program were scheduled beyond its weekly limit at least once, according to a new city watchdog report that found gaps in training, timekeeping and enforcement.
The Department of Investigation’s Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD reviewed assignments completed from January 2023 through November 14, 2025. Investigators found that 46% of participating officers had more than 20 paid-detail hours scheduled in a single week at least once. Nearly 30% worked at least one shift longer than the 10-hour limit, and 1.3% exceeded the 80-hour monthly cap at least once.
Those figures document recorded scheduling exceptions. They do not establish that every excess shift resulted from intentional misconduct by an officer. The report said enforcement depends heavily on self-regulation, retrospective reviews and three separate timekeeping systems, including paper records vulnerable to loss or alteration.
The safety questions are just as serious. Of 287,219 paid-detail assignments reviewed, 248,593 required one officer working alone. Yet the inspector general found that officers receive no training designed specifically for solo deployments and may arrive without consistent information about a site’s tenants, prior incidents or known security risks.
DOI began examining the program after NYPD Officer Didarul Islam was killed during the July 2025 mass shooting at 345 Park Avenue while working a paid detail. Four people were killed in that attack. The report does not claim that different training would have prevented those deaths. It says the shooting sharpened questions about what officers know before accepting private security assignments and how local precincts support them.
Payment controls also failed officers, the watchdog found. Vendors are supposed to forward payments within 14 days and are considered delinquent after 30 days. The Paid Detail Unit told investigators that it does not track vendor rule violations and rarely suspends, deactivates or removes vendors, even as officers have filed lawsuits alleging they were not paid for work they performed.
Those nonpayment allegations remain claims unless resolved or proven in court. What DOI confirmed is a system without a standardized framework for responding when a private company pays late or does not pay at all.
The inspector general issued 11 recommendations. They include mandatory solo-assignment training, site-specific risk disclosures, automatic scheduling controls, a single digital check-in and check-out system, consistent penalties for officer violations and written remedies for vendor nonpayment.
The report also calls for precincts to receive vendor agreements and known risk information for every paid detail in their area. Officers would be required to report unusual threats after being briefed by a vendor. Those changes would bring privately funded deployments closer to the information and supervision expected in regular police work.
The NYPD cooperated with the investigation, DOI said. The report does not include a public timetable showing which recommendations the department will adopt, when automatic controls will be installed or how current delinquent vendors will be handled. Those are now accountability questions for the Police Department and City Hall.
For everyday New Yorkers, the line between public policing and private security is not abstract. Paid-detail officers wear NYPD uniforms, carry full police powers and may be the first public-facing security presence at hospitals, stores and office buildings. If the city allows that badge to be hired by private entities, it must ensure the officer is trained, informed, rested and paid.
Sources
NYC Department of Investigation: A Review of the NYPD’s Paid Detail Program, Part I
amNewYork: Nearly Half of NYPD Paid Detail Cops Exceeded Weekly Work Limits
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