The interim chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board is resigning — and says he is stepping down because a police union head smeared him as “anti-cop” and lied about his record.
Dr. Mohammad Khalid, in a letter sent to Mayor Adams, said that going back to his days as a CCRB board member for 10 years during the Bloomberg administration he has always been “a voice for fairness.”
But, he said, he decided to resign “as a result of of Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry’s campaign of lies against my character.”
“He has lied about me and my record with the CCRB,” Khalid said in the letter. “He has accused me of being anti-cop, which is absolutely not the case. He even tried to link me to the political agenda of [Mayor-elect Mamdani], for no apparent reason beyond perhaps our shared faith.”
But a Hendry spokesman said the union head was not referring to religion but rather the fact both Khalid and Mamdani believe the CCRB — not the police commissioner — should have final say in disciplinary cases it investigates.
And Hendry said his overall criticism of Khalid, who resigned last Friday, is based on facts, namely that Khalid is biased against police officers and more than any other board member this year voted against when allegations of misconduct are investigated.”
“Dr. Khalid’s biased voting record, his disregard for CCRB’s own rules and procedures, and his dangerous plan to strip away the police commissioner’s authority made it clear that police officers were never going to get fair treatment from CCRB under his watch,” Hendry said in a statement. “Dr. Khalid must be replaced by a fair-minded chair, and every case that went against a police officer should be thrown out.”
Khalid’s replacement has not yet been named.
He said in his letter he would have preferred not to resign but that Hendry’s attacks “impacted me, my family and my health.”
Tensions between the watchdog agency and the NYPD, especially police union officials, is nothing new, even as the NYPD and CCRB have worked more closely, particularly since 2012, when both agencies entered into a memorandum of understanding that allows the CCRB to prosecute, in the trial room at One Police Plaza, some disciplinary cases.
Just last year, Arva Rice, Khalid’s predecessor, resigned after then-Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks asked her to step down following her criticism of the NYPD for what she saw a delay in turning over evidence in the case of two Bronx officers involved in a fatal shooting.
Mayor Adams in a statement thanked Khalid for his role in helping provide “police accountability.”
The mayor did not address Khalid’s criticism of Hendry, but Rendy Desamours, a spokesman for City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who also received Khalid’s resignation letter, said “it’s wrong that [Khalid’s] well-being and efforts to serve New Yorkers were negatively impacted by the police union’s targeted attacks on him.”
With Chris Sommerfeldt
Originally published: November 12, 2025 at 12:44 PM EST