Mayor Eric Adams on the funeral of slain NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, who was killed in a Midtown mass taking pictures on Monday, July 28. Thursday, July31, 2025.
Photograph by Dean Moses
Mayor Eric Adams saluted on Thursday a controversial NYPD unit for its response to the Midtown mass taking pictures this week in what seemed to be a jab at his common election opponent, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, who has vowed to disband the group.
Throughout the Bronx funeral service for fallen Officer Didarul Islam, one of many taking pictures’s 4 victims, Hizzoner praised the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG) for its dealing with of the incident only a day after Mamdani confirmed that he nonetheless plans to disband the unit.
“I want to say thank you to the men and women of the New York City Police Department in general, but specifically to the men and women of SRG,” Adams mentioned. “They entered the building while the shooter was still alive, and they conducted a floor-by-floor search. They wanted to ensure that everyone in that building would have come out safely.”
The taking pictures, which came about in a Park Avenue workplace constructing on Monday night, was carried out by a lone gunman who took his personal life after killing Islam and three different individuals, in accordance with police.
Adams, a Democrat working as an impartial after skipping the occasion’s main, made the remarks simply ft away from Mamdani, who was reportedly sitting with Islam’s household through the service. Mamdani — who, like Islam, is Muslim and South Asian — was invited by the late officer’s household a day after assembly with them upon his return from a visit to his native nation of Uganda.
The mayor’s remarks adopted Mamdani — a Queens Meeting member — on Wednesday reaffirming that he would nix the SRG if he’s elected mayor as a result of what he described as its heavy-handed ways in policing protests. He initially floated dismantling the unit in a social media submit late final yr.
The SRG has been fiercely criticized by left-leaning pols, authorities watchdogs, and police reform advocates who say it isn’t correctly skilled and needlessly escalates tensions when responding to protests.
Mamdani informed reporters on Wednesday that he would change the SRG with one other unit designed to particularly reply to emergencies like Monday’s mass taking pictures, however not protests.
“What we saw on Monday was an example of how we would want a response to look like to an emergency,” Mamdani mentioned. “There is a need to ensure that every act we take is one that is actually delivering public safety. And what we see right now, especially with regards to how we respond to protest, is not in line with that.”
Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who can also be difficult Mamdani as an impartial, have been hammering him over his stance on the SRG and his different previous criticisms of the police within the days because the taking pictures.
The mayor referred to as the thought of breaking apart the SRG “extremely dangerous,” and Cuomo mentioned that stance exhibits Mamdani “doesn’t understand government, and he doesn’t understand public safety, and he is dangerous in that regard.”
