6. The Police Riots of 1860

In 1860, Mayor Fernando Wood, who would later motion for New York City to secede from the Union, was under scrutiny for selling police titles. The state got involved by creating a Metropolitan police and attempted to disband the Municipal police force, but they refused. For two months the Municipal and the Metropolitan begrudgingly co-existed until the street commissioner needed to be replaced.

The Mayor and the Governor disagreed on who should replace the recently dead commissioner. The disagreement resulted in the Police Riots of 1857 at City Hall between the two factions of the police. After trying and failing to arrest Mayor Wood for any significant amount of time, The New York High court voted in favor of Wood and his Municipal police. Wood was voted out of office the following year.