A mob hurled snowballs and huge chunks of snow at NYPD officers in Washington Square Park on Monday afternoon, turning what was billed as a massive snowball fight into something that looked a lot more like a coordinated assault on law enforcement. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced an investigation into the incident, and she did not mince words.
I want to be very clear: The behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal. Our detectives are investigating this matter.
Videos of the melee went viral within hours. They showed hundreds of winter revelers in the park, with agitators singling out uniformed officers and pelting them, including striking an NYPD vehicle. City Council Speaker Julie Menin said several officers suffered facial injuries after being struck.
And Mayor Zohran Mamdani? He stopped short of explicitly condemning it.
Mamdani eventually addressed the mayhem on X, but what he said was almost more revealing than what he didn't, the New York Post reported. He called the attackers "kids." He urged people to "treat them with respect." Then he cracked a joke.
Officers, like all city workers, have been out in a historic blizzard, keeping New Yorkers safe and cars moving. Treat them with respect. If anyone's catching a snowball, it's me.
Read that again. Officers were targeted by a mob while working through a blizzard, and the mayor of New York City responded with a punchline. Not a condemnation. Not a promise to hold anyone accountable. A quip about catching a snowball himself.
The word "condemn" never appeared. Neither did "unacceptable," "assault," or "criminal." Those words came from everyone else.
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo connected the attack directly to the tone Mamdani has set since taking office. Cuomo pointed to Mamdani's history of calling police "racist, evil, wicked, and corrupt."
Words have consequences. We are seeing that in the growing disrespect for law enforcement — just as we've seen it in the rise in antisemitism. Real leaders understand that. This mayor does not.
Ex-Mayor Eric Adams, no stranger to clashing with Mamdani's wing of New York politics, was equally blunt:
Watching officers get pelted with snow while they are out in brutal weather protecting this city should make every New Yorker furious. It is disgusting behavior.
Adams went further, insinuating that Mamdani and like-minded politicians had created the conditions for this kind of incident.
And the politicians who constantly bash the police and refuse to have their backs are setting a terrible example. Leadership matters. Tone matters.
U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island demanded every elected official in the city denounce "this juvenile attack on our NYPD." GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik pointed to Mamdani's silence as a form of approval, noting that a mayor who has "a fully produced video with a costume for just about everything" had nothing to say when officers were under attack.
Governor Kathy Hochul issued a brief statement after the footage started going viral:
Our NYPD officers put themselves on the line to protect us every day. It is never acceptable to throw anything at a police officer, full stop.
The Police Benevolent Association called the incident "unacceptable and outrageous" and demanded that the individuals involved be identified, arrested, and charged with assault on a police officer. The union also called on all city leaders to condemn the attack.
Scott Munro, president of the Detectives' Endowment Association, rejected any attempt to frame the incident as harmless winter fun:
What we saw in Washington Square Park today was not harmless fun — it was a deliberate, outrageous, and dangerous attack on uniformed police officers.
As of the time of reporting, police had not yet confirmed whether any officers were injured, though Menin's account of facial injuries suggests the answer is already known to at least some city officials.
There is a pattern in cities governed by leaders who spent years treating police as the enemy. The rhetoric filters down. It doesn't stay in press conferences and campaign speeches. It lands in the streets, in the attitudes of people who decide that cops are fair game, that pelting an officer with ice and snow is just a bit of fun, that "kids" is an adequate description for a mob targeting public servants.
Mamdani didn't throw a snowball on Monday. He didn't have to. When you build a political career on the premise that the NYPD is an occupying force, you shouldn't be surprised when your constituents act accordingly. The mayor's refusal to condemn the attack wasn't an oversight. It was consistency.
Every other public figure who commented, Democrat and Republican, found the word "disgraceful." Cuomo found it. Adams found it. Tisch found it. Hochul found it. Malliotakis found it. The police unions found it.
The mayor of the city where it happened found a joke instead.
That tells you everything about who Zohran Mamdani governs for. And it tells NYPD officers everything they need to know about who has their back. The mob heard him loud and clear.
