NYPD to deploy record number of cops to West Indian Day Parade and J'Ouvert

Rocco Parascandola and Julian Roberts-Grmela, New York Daily News on Aug 29, 2025

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NEW YORK — A record deployment of New York Police Department officers will be assigned to protect revelers at the West Indian Day Parade and J’Ouvert celebrations this Labor Day weekend — as an additional 2,500 cops will also be sent to parks and gang hot spots throughout the city to tamp down any potential gang violence, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Friday.

All summer long, police foot posts have been placed around the Big Apple to drive down shootings to record lows, Tisch said during a news conference at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, announcing the NYPD’s plans for this weekend’s parade.

Thanks to a Police Academy graduation on Aug. 6 that added nearly 1,000 new officers to the department’s ranks — the biggest addition of manpower in almost a decade— the NYPD can expand its coverage even further this Labor Day weekend, Tisch said.

“This is a bigger foot post deployment than we have ever done in the past on this weekend,” she said.

“Thousands” of cops will be specifically detailed along the West Indian Day Parade route down Eastern Parkway and the neighboring streets for the J’Ouvert celebration, which starts at daybreak Monday, five hours before the parade kicks off, officials said.

In addition, 2,500 more cops will be posted at trouble spots in boroughs around the city as part of an overall anti-violence initiative for the end-of-summer weekend.

“We are going to have 2,500 officers on foot posts on streets where we know that gang violence has occurred in the past,” Tisch said.

A number of those officers will be assigned to parks, she said.

The West Indian Parade and J’Ouvert are perennially among the biggest events for the department in terms of sheer manpower deployed.

Last year, a gunman jumped a barricade during the parade and wildly opened fire, wounding a 16-year-old gang rival and striking four others, killing a 25-year-old man.

That shooting is still unsolved.

Tisch said the parade this year will now have two rows of barricades surrounding the parade, like “a moat.”

”As always, the NYPD, along with our law enforcement partners, remain vigilant,” she said. “We are all on the same page about one thing: There will zero tolerance for violence of any kind. This must remain a celebration — not an occasion marred by guns or disorder.

“This weekend is meant to highlight culture, music and Caribbean pride and it should not be overshadowed by headlines about bloodshed or chaos.”

Celebrants will be scanned for weapons before entering the frozen zone along and surrounding Eastern Parkway. Police will also use more drones than ever to monitor the action from overhead. And police will monitor social media in real time for any indication of possible gang violence.

Police recovered 13 guns after the shooting at last year’s parade, on top of the estimated three dozen recovered the entire weekend in the police precincts along and near the parade route.

Native Brooklynite Malik Scherrod said this will actually be the first time he’ll attend the festive parade. He said he supports the beefed-up NYPD deployment, especially in light of recent shooting incidents.

“Things have been changing the past few months,” he said, “shooting in the Bronx, shooting here, shooting there. So you have to step it up as things change.”

“The police presence throws it, throws things off at times,” he said. “You think twice before you want to act silly, you know. I mean, maybe you think three times.”

And Scherrod supports the new, stricter parade rules, like spectators not being able to jump into the parade and march and dance along.

“When my youngest son was in a parade in South Carolina, you couldn’t run up from the street and go give him a high five,” he said. “So why should you be able to do it here?”

Jah Mark, 55, from Jamaica, who was vending on Eastern Parkway, also said he backs the police boost for Labor Day weekend.

“I think that’s good,” he said. “Police presence brings the safety.”

But he doesn’t like the ongoing ban on backpacks and booze at J’Ouvert, feeling it’s bad for business.

“I don’t agree with no backpack and no alcohol,” he said. “A lot of people drink, and those who drink, they spend money.”

Fellow vendor Jah Lion King said he was near last year’s chaotic parade shooting. But he said, this year, he’s feeling positive the event will be peaceful.

“I just see people running,” he recalled of last year’s deadly gunfire. “We not think about that, this a new year. I think there’s a goodness this year, and joy and happiness, you know. You know, we don’t go back in the past. We’re not gonna have no shooting this year.”