New Yorkers’ Right to Protest is Under Attack. Here’s How a New Bill Can Protect it

Across the country, the right to protest is increasingly under threat. Since 2024, lawmakers have introduced more than 100 bills in at least 27 states aimed at restricting protest activity, criminalizing First Amendment activity, and, in some cases, turning routine protest conduct like blocking traffic into felony offenses.

At the same time, federal and local authorities have responded to demonstrations with escalating force. Protesters outside immigration detention centers and ICE facilities have faced violent crowd-control tactics. Authorities have fired tear gas, pepper balls, and flash-bang grenades – often at close range and without warning.

Unfortunately, for New Yorkers, militarized protest policing is nothing new. For years, demonstrations across the city have been met with aggressive tactics, most often at the hands of the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG), a unit that has become synonymous with the violent suppression of protest.

The city’s continued reliance on the SRG puts New Yorkers at risk. But a bill recently re-introduced in the City Council – the Communities United to Reject Brutality (CURB) Act – would help protect our right to speak out.

The SRG’s Long History of Abuse

The SRG, established in 2015, has a well-documented record of misconduct, racial bias, and violence against protesters. The NYPD originally created the SRG with a dual mission of counterterrorism and protest response. The unit quickly drew fire from police watchdog groups and others because of its repeated suppression of demonstrations.

In response to this criticism, the NYPD claimed it would limit the SRG’s role to counterterrorism. But mere weeks later, the NYPD went back on that commitment, and the SRG was deployed to protests. The unit has been a dangerous presence at protests across New York City ever since.

The SRG is trained in militarized crowd-control tactics and its officers have repeatedly treated nonviolent protesters as threats, deploying kettling, indiscriminate pepper spray, and even using bicycles as weapons against demonstrators.

As the SRG’s footprint has grown, so has its cost. The unit’s budget increased from $13 million in its first year to an estimated $133.7 million annually as of 2024.

Through the NYCLU’s Protest Monitoring Program, we have documented the SRG’s brutality firsthand. In 2021, the NYCLU was joined by more than 80 organizations in calling for the unit to be disbanded. Today, Mayor Mamdani has echoed our demands in his pledge to disband the SRG in his first year in office.

While we continue to call for the disbandment of the SRG, we also know that disbandment alone is not enough. Without structural safeguards, another unit like it could take its place.

The CURB Act Builds on Hard-Fought Legal Wins

In 2024, the NYCLU, The Legal Aid Society, and the New York Attorney General’s office reached a landmark settlement designed to significantly change the way the NYPD polices protest. Among many provisions, this agreement establishes a four-tiered response system intended to limit when and how the SRG can be deployed, restricting its use to higher risk situations.

But legal settlements do not let city officials off the hook for doing their part to make sure that the SRG and its abuses come to an end. That’s where the CURB Act comes in.

The CURB Act would codify some of the hard-fought wins from the settlement, while building on its foundation to further protect New Yorkers’ right to protest.

The legislation would remove the SRG from protest policing altogether and ban their militarized tactics, including kettling, tear gas, indiscriminate use of pepper spray, and the use of ear-splitting weapons like the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD). Vitally, it would prevent the deployment of a future SRG-like unit at protests, and establish much-needed transparency and accountability measures by requiring regular NYPD reporting on protest-related policing.

New York Must Protect Protest Rights

President Trump is a one-man wrecking crew for protest rights. And New York is not immune to local and state efforts to curtail protest. Our state has an opportunity and an obligation to safeguard free speech.

Thousands of New Yorkers have been harmed by the SRG, and they have long demanded City leaders take action to end the unit’s abuse. The CURB Act would ensure that New Yorkers can speak out without fear of militarized police violence.

The right to protest is fundamental to a functioning democracy, and protecting it requires more than just empty words about the value of free speech. City leaders should put words into action and pass the CURB Act without delay.