Democratic nominee and Meeting Member Zohran Mamdani says he’ll apologize for his previous social media posts calling the NYPD racist.
Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
Democratic mayoral nominee and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani will apologize for a 2020 social media submit wherein he referred to as the NYPD “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” his marketing campaign confirmed to New York News.
Mamdani’s obvious shift on his previous feedback — he first revealed this in a Thursday interview with The New York Occasions — comes after he beforehand stated these feedback had been “out of step” together with his mayoral bid however stopped in need of formally apologizing for them.
It demonstrates an obvious effort by Mamdani — a democratic socialist Queens Meeting member — to average his as soon as a lot further-left views on policing as he vies in opposition to a crowded discipline of challengers within the Nov. 4 common election. These opponents — significantly independents former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams — have made a lot hay out of Mamdani’s previous criticisms of the NYPD to color him as in poor health outfitted to steer the division.
Mamdani’s marketing campaign confirmed his feedback to The Occasions.
The lawmaker informed the outlet that he made the social media submit “at the height of frustration” within the weeks following George Floyd’s homicide by the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. When requested twice by a reporter if he would apologize for these feedback, he stated “yes.”
Nonetheless, it’s unclear if Mamdani would make such an apology throughout his marketing campaign or after, if he had been to win the election.
All through his marketing campaign, Mamdani has additionally repeatedly stated he now not helps the “defund the police” motion he as soon as embraced.
“To be very clear, as I have been over the course of this campaign, I’m not defunding the police, I’m not running to defund the police,” he stated in July.
Tepid approval from police union
The Meeting member’s public security plan requires sustaining the NYPD’s present price range for a headcount of 35,000 — although the division was about 1,261 officers in need of that quantity as of August. He additionally intends to create a separate Division of Neighborhood Security that might have non-police personnel reply to quite a lot of psychological health-related issues as a substitute of cops.
Mamdani’s remarks did obtain some tepid approval from Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Affiliation, the NYPD’s largest rank-and-file union. However the union boss additionally signaled that Mamdani should do extra to show his dedication to enhancing NYPD officers’ working situations.
“Words of support are important, but they need to be backed up with action,” Hendry stated. “We need elected leaders who not only support cops on the campaign trail, but who will work with us every single day to improve our safety, quality of life, and compensation as we protect New York City.”
Cuomo, nevertheless, charged in a Friday assertion that Mamdani’s moderation on policing is a part of a flip-flopping sample on previous controversial positions.
“For weeks, Zohran Mamdani has been ducking, dodging, and rewriting his own record,” Cuomo stated. “New Yorkers deserve straight answers. These are not ‘gotcha’ questions, nor are they — as Mamdani now says — ‘a mythical version’ of him — they are his own words, his own positions, and his own record. Until he gives clear, honest responses, voters are left with just one question of their own: Who is Zohran Mamdani, and what does he stand for?”
Cuomo is second to Mamdani within the polls, although he’s trailing the Democratic nominee by double digits. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and Adams are polling behind Cuomo.
Along with public security, Cuomo dinged Mamdani for distancing himself from the platform that the nationwide Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) launched final month. The platform consists of proposals many see as radical, equivalent to eliminating all misdemeanor offenses and shutting all native jails.
In response, Mamdani’s spokesperson Dora Pekec insisted that he has solely modified his stance on policing and on using the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which he now discourages after initially declining to sentence it.
Mamdani maintains that he has by no means used the phrase — seen by many as an incitement to violence in opposition to Jewish individuals — himself.
