What would a National Guard deployment look like in New York?

While a third night of curfew in New York City saw another largely peaceful protest against police brutality, it also saw more violent confrontations between police and demonstrators later in the night. Videos circulated on social media of NYPD enforcement tactics against protesters that were condemned by New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. A police officer was stabbed in the neck and two others were shot in their hands by a man in Brooklyn.

With episodes like these, some officials are calling for backup from the New York National Guard. “The National Guard is perfectly well suited to step in and provide a supporting role to the NYPD because what is being asked of the NYPD is incredibly significant and arduous,” Rep. Max Rose – a captain in the Army National Guard – told City & State on Wednesday. “And that is to keep the peace, while also not inflicting any unnecessary violence in any way, shape or form.” Rose clarified, however, that he’s not calling for anything like President Donald Trump’s threats to deploy U.S. military forces to respond to the protests, which has been criticized by former military leaders.

But some states – including California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, where George Floyd was killed by police – have taken the less extreme step to deploy their own National Guard troops to respond to civil unrest. New York has so far not indicated that it will deploy its National Guard personnel to New York City, though Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said that forces remain on standby for cities that request them.

The New York National Guard – a force consisting of the part-time military members that make up the state’s Air National Guard and Army National Guard – can be deployed for a variety of reasons, including natural disasters, overseas wars and even the coronavirus pandemic. But given the history of those forces being deployed to help quell unrest at protests over systemic racism, City & State took a look at how exactly the Guard might be deployed, and the risks that are involved in doing so. Here’s what you need to know about a potential deployment of the National Guard in New York.

Why are some calling for the National Guard to be deployed in New York City?

Over the weekend and early this week, as many protests against police brutality across New York City have been peaceful demonstrations, a smaller number of people have seized the moment to incite violence and/or loot stores.

Despite New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio defending the NYPD’s ability to handle the situation – and Cuomo walking back criticisms of the NYPD’s behavior – some New York officials believe the NYPD can’t handle this on their own. New York elected officials including moderate Democrats Rose and New York City Councilman Robert Holden, along with Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin, are calling on Cuomo to deploy the National Guard to New York City to help tame the rioting, looting and violence. That call has been echoed – if not led, in the case of Stefanik and Zeldin – by Trump, who has called repeatedly for the National Guard to be deployed in places where protests continue.

While Trump went as far as to threaten the deployment of the U.S. military in cities and states – and he had police and the National Guard clear peaceful protesters with tear gas ahead of a photo op in Washington, D.C. – Rose said a deployment of the National Guard wouldn’t look anything like that in New York. “I cannot judge the circumstances of those individual soldiers, but if I were, as a soldier, given orders to infringe upon someone’s constitutional right to peacefully protest and peacefully express their right to be heard, those are orders I would not follow,” Rose said. “But with that being said, the National Guard is perfectly well suited to step in and provide a supporting role to the NYPD.”

Where do Cuomo and de Blasio stand?

Though Cuomo acts as the commander in chief of the New York National Guard – as does each state’s governor over their own forces – he has said he would not send Guard personnel to cities unless they are requested. On Wednesday, when walking back criticisms he made the previous day about the NYPD’s response to looting, Cuomo said that while he’s still prepared to send the National Guard to New York City, he doesn’t think their services are called for yet. “I was prepared to send the National Guard to help to provide resources if the city needed them, but I said I don’t believe the NYPD needs the National Guard,” Cuomo said Wednesday, calling on the mayor to utilize all of the NYPD’s more than 30,000 uniformed members. “I believe there was an issue of management and deployment of the NYPD.”

Those comments put Cuomo closer in line with de Blasio who, despite facing widespread criticism over his handling of the crisis and accusations that the NYPD has used excessive force against protesters, has stood firmly against bringing in the National Guard so far. “We do not need nor do we think it’s wise for the National Guard to be in New York City, nor any armed forces,” de Blasio said at a press conference on Tuesday. “When outside armed forces go into communities, no good that comes of it. We have seen this for decades. Go back to the ’50s, ’60s with the civil rights movement, on through all the way up to today,” de Blasio added, possibly referring to instances in which National Guardsmen were called to quell rioting after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. “We have 36,000 police officers. They are the best equipped to deal with this situation,” de Blasio said. “And you know what will help them deal with the situation? Not the National Guard. The people of New York City are much more powerful than anything the National Guard could do,” he added, asking clergy members, civic leaders and block associations to help discourage violence. Of course, members of a state’s National Guard are also typically residents of that state, though it’s possible personnel deployed in New York City wouldn’t be city residents.

As of Wednesday, the National Guard had yet to be deployed to any other cities in New York. A spokesman for the governor did not respond to requests for comment.

What role would the National Guard fill in New York City?

Given the size and resources of the NYPD, it hasn’t been entirely clear from those calling for deployment of the National Guard what role they want those personnel to fill. 

Rose told City & State that the National Guard had an important supporting part to play with the NYPD. “You can imagine the National Guard helping the NYPD with resourcing. You can imagine them helping the NYPD with precinct activities. You can imagine them assisting the NYPD in terms of their patrolling capabilities, but in a supporting function,” Rose said. He noted that examples of the National Guard’s functions were already on display in New York City, including with the National Guard being deployed to assist in coronavirus relief efforts as well as with National Guard forces being deployed to large New York City transportation hubs like Grand Central Station, Penn Station and area airports to deter and prevent terrorism. “When you view it through those lenses, this is not something that is totally out of left field,” Rose said.

Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, went into further detail about the ways that the National Guard could theoretically be deployed to aid in a city’s response to the current unrest. “It is typical for Guard personnel to be used as support to police in basic patrolling activity, and they can also provide command, control and communications help,” Cohn wrote over email, clarifying that she spoke in her personal capacity as a scholar and that her views did not represent those of the U.S. Naval War College or the U.S. government. Cohn added that whether or not National Guard personnel are armed is also dependent on how each state chooses to deploy them.

Does that mean that National Guard troops could be authorized to make arrests, just like a police officer? Cohn said that the ability of Guard personnel to arrest or detain people depends on how the governor chooses to deploy them. “If they are not given that authority, they will always accompany law enforcement personnel and simply provide extra manpower/presence and possibly security,” she wrote. She added that in most cases where the National Guard has been deployed so far, they haven’t been tasked with law enforcement powers, but have provided logistical support, protection for police and security at municipal or state buildings.

As to whether National Guard personnel are trained to de-escalate conflicts – an obvious imperative when it comes to law enforcement’s response to the current protests – Cohn said that while all personnel are trained to a basic national standard, training can vary widely from state to state. She added that aiding civil authorities and responding to civil disturbances are core missions for the Guard. But the resources devoted to those missions over others – like Guard personnel being deployed to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan – depend entirely on the political leadership of the state. “Since Kent State, most Guard forces have worked to improve their professionalism and to emphasize restraint in dealing with civil disturbance, but I do not know the extent to which any are specifically trained in de-escalation techniques,” Cohn wrote, referring to one of the most famous examples of the National Guard being deployed in response to protests – at Kent State University in 1970, where the Ohio National Guard killed four students protesting the Vietnam War.

A spokesman for the New York Division of Military and Naval Affairs referred a request for comment about National Guard training to the governor’s press office, which did not respond to requests for comment.

Rose declined to go into detail about whether the New York National Guard is trained in de-escalation or not, but said he was confident in the Guard’s ability to not further escalate violence. “It’s not perfect, not all soldiers are created identically,” Rose said. “But I have extraordinary confidence in their training and their capacity to deal with those situations, all the while applying military values and their own personal values to the situation with the intent of de-escalating at every possible opportunity, all while obviously protecting themselves and ensuring the safety of others.”

What’s at stake when the National Guard is called in?

Historically, deployments of the National Guard to deal with protests and civil unrest are not without troubling examples. The Kent State massacre is one. A lesser-known example is in Wilmington, Delaware, where National Guard personnel were deployed after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and essentially occupied the city for nine months.

Rose pushed back on some of the historical allusions made by de Blasio, saying that the presence of Guard personnel would not escalate violence. “The mayor’s comments are ignorant and offensive to National Guard soldiers,” Rose said. “And quite frankly, they are completely detached from the reality of National Guard elements throughout the country right now, as we speak, positively contributing to ensuring a reduction in tensions, a rise in public safety, all with the goal of achieving it in a just manner, without any additional violence being unnecessarily incited.”

In these protests specifically, however, deployments of National Guard personnel have been criticized. The National Guard is investigating the use of helicopters to disperse protesters in Washington, D.C. In Kentucky, the National Guard’s presence is being reduced after Guard personnel were involved in a shooting in Louisville that left one man dead. The National Guard in Minnesota joined aggressive efforts to clear Minneapolis streets after protesters remained on the streets after the curfew there over the weekend.

Meanwhile, Trump’s threats to deploy active U.S. military forces to cities have been panned by ex-military leaders, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis. When it comes to introducing a military element into already fraught protests – even if that element is the state’s own National Guard – some say there is a risk that even the presence of uniformed, possibly armed soldiers could aggravate the conflict. “Oftentimes it has been the case that when the military appears, the protesters – who to begin with are already protesting violations of civil rights – see the military coming in and it’s like an aggravation of the violations that they’re protesting to begin with,” said Vincent Bonventre, a professor at Albany Law School. “I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that it certainly (would be) inflammatory for a lot of the protesters.”

Cohn suggested that the potential for their presence to escalate violent confrontation would depend on the rhetoric of the state’s leadership, the behavior of the Guard personnel themselves and the nature of the situations they’re responding to.

That those concerns would bear out in New York of course depends on whether the National Guard is called up. For now, at least, it seems that Cuomo is not yet ready to take that step.