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Chief Terence Monahan, the highest-ranking uniformed officer, told The New York Post on Tuesday that he was outraged by Governor Cuomo’s criticism and defended the department’s handling of the unrest.

“I’m watching my men and women out there dealing with stuff that no cop should ever have to deal with — bricks, bottles, rocks,” Chief Monahan said.

In the evening, a spokesman for the governor walked back parts of Mr. Cuomo’s remarks about the police, saying he respected the rank and file but questioned Mr. de Blasio’s management and deployment of the 36,000 officers. “Why isn’t at least half of the force on the streets protecting public safety with looting going on across the city?” the aide, Richard Azzopardi, said.

Some decisions departed from past practice, experts on crowd control said. The city did not deploy plainclothes anti-crime officers during the Manhattan demonstrations to spot people throwing bricks or committing other crimes, a city official said. Mounted units were not used for crowd control either, and the demonstrators were allowed to roam relatively freely rather than being channeled onto certain routes.

Some officers blamed the ensuing chaos on indecisive leadership. “It seems like we have lost control,” said one city detective, also speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It’s apparent that there’s no direction.”

Another detective, who, like his colleagues, spoke on the condition that he not be named, said he did not believe that orders had been issued for officers to refrain from confronting looters. But he said officers had been instructed to “keep yourself safe,” and may have waited in some cases to engage with looters.

“It’s dangerous, especially if you don’t have a lot of police in the immediate area,” he said.

Brian Higgins, an expert on crowd control who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the police department should not be playing catch-up with looters a week into the demonstrations.