Mayor Eric Adams on the scene of the capturing.
Photograph by Dean Moses
The Monday evening Midtown mass capturing that left 5 folks useless, together with an NYPD officer and the suspected gunman, drew instant condolences from the main common election mayoral candidates and has the potential to shake up a race that has already been a rollercoaster experience.
Because the sitting mayor, former NYPD captain Eric Adams jumped into motion on Monday evening, showing on the scene of the capturing inside an workplace constructing at 345 Park Ave.
Police say a lone gunman, whom they recognized as 27-year-old Shane Tamiea, walked into the constructing on the evening of July 28 and killed 4 folks with an M-4 assault rifle, earlier than turning the gun on himself. One of many victims was an off-duty NYPD officer, 36-year-old Didarul Islam, who was killed whereas on an off-duty safety element.
“We lost four souls in another senseless act of gun violence, including a member of the New York City Police Department, Officer Islam,” Adams mentioned on Monday evening. “He was just 36 years old. He was doing what he does best, and all members of the police department carry out, he was saving lives. He was protecting New Yorkers.”
Adams, who’s operating a longshot bid for reelection as an impartial, has targeted on public security — together with combating gun violence — as one in every of his core points since he first ran for mayor in 2021. The capturing got here simply two days after Adams touted that the NYPD had eliminated 3,000 unlawful weapons from metropolis streets for the reason that begin of this yr.
Nevertheless, the gunman, a Nevada resident, is suspected to have introduced the weapons with him after driving to New York Metropolis from Las Vegas. Throughout a Tuesday morning interview on Pix11, Adams mentioned Tamiea “appeared to have” obtained his weapons legally with a hid carry allow.
“This is what makes our challenge so difficult when you have suspects bringing guns into our city,” Adams mentioned. ” Coping with those that come from areas with lax gun legal guidelines that enable people to have these excessive powered weapons and enter cities like New York which have sturdy gun legal guidelines.”
Will capturing impression the mayor’s race?
The incident may give Adams an opportunity to as soon as once more heart public security in a race principally about affordability — the difficulty that Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani targeted on in his profitable main marketing campaign.
Former state Democratic Get together Chair Basil Smikle mentioned he believes Adams may lean into the capturing to focus on the significance of supporting the NYPD.
“It’s sort of a reminder to voters of one of the big reasons he was elected in 2021,” Smikle mentioned. “Because he is the current mayor, he will have a lot of opportunities to speak on this. There’s gonna be a funeral, and he’ll be there at the funeral. He’ll speak. He’ll be with his police commissioner talking about how to make the city safer and about the ongoing investigation.”
Mamdani, who’s presently celebrating his current wedding ceremony together with his household in his residence nation of Uganda, launched two statements through social media sharing his condolences for the slain officer and the opposite three victims who had been killed. Like Mamdani, Islam was a South Asian Muslim immigrant.
“A Bangladeshi immigrant who joined the NYPD four years ago, he lived in Parkchester with his pregnant wife, their two young children, and his elderly parents,” Mamdani wrote of Islam. “When he joined the police department, his mother asked him why he would pursue such a dangerous job. He told her it was to leave behind a legacy his family could be proud of. He has done that, and more. I pray for him, his family, and honor the legacy of service and sacrifice he leaves behind.”
The capturing may put Mamdani, who as soon as stood for defunding the police, however has since moderated on that place, in a difficult place as he vies in opposition to a crowded common election discipline to clinch the mayoralty in November. Mamdani is presently the frontrunner in a race that features Adams, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who can be operating on an impartial line after dropping the Democratic main, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, and impartial Jim Walden.
However Smikle mentioned he believes Mamdani may converse to the cultural commonalities between himself and Islam.
“I think Mamdani can talk about himself as part of that immigrant community that makes sacrifices for the betterment of the city,” Smikle mentioned. “Not to necessarily cast himself in the same light as someone who has a badge and puts themselves in danger in the same way, but just to remind the voters that immigrant communities are the lifeblood of the city.”
In the meantime, Cuomo and Walden each expressed related sentiments to Mamdani, honoring the victims who died, notably Islam.
“Officer Didarul Islam’s courage was as boundless as his love for this city,” Cuomo mentioned in a submit on X. “He gave his life protecting New Yorkers. A hero. We honor his sacrifice and the quiet bravery of every NYPD officer who stands the watch so we can live free.”
Like Adams, the incident may present a gap for Cuomo to hammer residence his argument that the town is unsafe and wishes an skilled supervisor like himself to steer it at this second.
Nevertheless, Lupe Todd-Medina, a veteran political strategist who labored on Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ failed mayoral marketing campaign within the main, mentioned she doesn’t imagine the capturing will have an effect on the race.
“I can’t see how somebody who came all the way from Las Vegas to come here to do that unspeakable [act] would impact this race, not in any meaningful way,” Todd-Medina mentioned. “I think that any campaign that attempts to do that is is reaching. It is really taking kind of a an unfortunate incident that happened in the city, which killed an NYPD officer, and using it in a very unfashionable and inadvisable way.”
