More than 2,500 NYPD officers leave force in 2023 amid 'inhumane amounts of forced overtime'

More than 2,500 New York Police Department officers have left the force so far in 2023, which at least one police official attributes to cops being forced to work a significant number of overtime hours. 

So far this year, 2,516 officers have left the New York force, according to pension data recently reported by The New York Post.

Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry, whose group is the largest police union in the United States, said officers have been leaving the force for years without being replaced, forcing the officers who remain employed to work "inhumane amounts of forced overtime."

Additionally, so far this year 1,040 officers have quit before working the 20 years required to receive their full pensions – more than twice the number who did so in 2020. 

"The workload is a leading factor driving people away from the job," Hendry said. "If the NYPD is going to survive these staffing reductions, it cannot just keep squeezing cops for more hours."

Another officer, who asked to remain anonymous, said he plans to retire this summer as soon as he hits 20 years at the department. 

"I keep in contact with the guys that I was in the police academy with and we all have the same notion," said the officer who finished training in 2004 with a class of 2,400. "I think maybe 95% of us are planning on leaving."

Officers who retire after 20 or more years are able to collect 50% of their final average salary as a pension.

The department has more than 33,500 uniformed officers, data shows, but New York City budget cuts will whittle the number of officers to 29,000 by the end of the fiscal year 2025, even as crime appears to be on the rise after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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