When reporters requested Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday in regards to the snowball incident and whether or not such an investigation was warranted, he gave a really milquetoast response.
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
A snowball struggle in Washington Sq. Park shouldn’t attain the extent of a scandal involving the mayor, however right here we’re.
Let’s state the apparent: Some idiots attending a well-intentioned snowball struggle in Washington Sq. Park on Monday after the weekend’s blizzard bought out of hand and determined to pelt law enforcement officials responding to the scene with their icy ammo.
A number of the officers who had been hit with snowballs suffered lacerations. That, mixed with the viral movies of the incident, is sufficient proof of an assault to warrant a felony investigation — one thing which Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and the heads of a number of police unions agreed ought to occur whereas condemning the assault.
However when reporters requested Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday in regards to the snowball incident and whether or not such an investigation was warranted, he gave a really milquetoast response.
“I’ve seen videos of the kids throwing snowballs at members of the NYPD in Washington Square Park,” Mamdani mentioned. “I want to say, our officers have been on the front lines of helping our city respond to this blizzard. … They and our entire city workforce deserve to be treated with respect.”
In truth, his response to this query was practically similar to an announcement he tweeted in regards to the incident a short while earlier than Tuesday’s press convention.
When pressed about whether or not a felony investigation ought to ensue, as Tisch urged, and if those that hurled snowballs that injured officers needs to be prosecuted, because the police unions demanded, Mamdani gave non-answers, insisting that, in his view, “It looks like a snowball fight.”
The mayor didn’t explicitly rebuff his police commissioner or the police unions along with his all-too-carefully worded responses. However one doesn’t want a level in mind-reading to see via them and acknowledge this public rebuke.
On the press convention, a reporter requested Mamdani whether or not he believed there was an overreaction to the snowball incident—and the mayor once more declined to offer a direct reply.
The mayor’s cautious response to this incident was pointless and inane. Nobody would have disagreed with a public name for an investigation, provided that officers had been injured within the affair. On the very least, it might have been a present of assist from the mayor to the NYPD rank-and-file that any assault, massive or small, is insupportable and unacceptable.
As a substitute, Mamdani’s alternative of phrases invitations additional public scrutiny that would, nicely, snowball into a much bigger public relations drawback for the mayor. It additionally minimizes the assault of two officers within the eyes of many.
The folks of New York didn’t elect this mayor to present non-answers, regurgitate rehearsed strains, or to throw the NYPD below the bus. Mamdani should heed the phrases of Franklin D. Roosevelt and “speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly” — whatever the scenario, in issues massive and small, and all the time in doing what’s proper.
