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Michael Goodwin: Mayor Mamdani offers ‘sloppy’ response to NYPD officers attacked with snowballs

For better and worse, the tenure of any new major public official is often defined by events in the first 100 days of the term. 

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is certainly no exception, with his awful beginning at City Hall confirmed again Tuesday. His latest big time blunder was his expression of icy indifference to police officers being attacked by snowballs in Manhattan. 

Called to break up a large snowball fight in Washington Square Park on Monday afternoon, a group of uniformed officers quickly became the targets. 

The cops were surrounded, taunted and then the ice and snow came flying at them. Some officers were struck in the head and face and required medical attention. 

The mayor’s response was as cold as the blizzard. 

“I’ve seen the videos of kids throwing snowballs at NYPD officers in Washington Square Park,” he later said on X. “Officers, like all city workers, have been out in a historic blizzard, keeping New Yorkers safe and cars moving. Treat them with respect.” 

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Strong memo to follow, maybe, but probably not ever. 

A core problem with the 34-year-old rookie’s reaction is that his language is as sloppy as his thinking. Cops are not “like all city workers.” 

Their unique training, authority and responsibility is why concerned New Yorkers called 911 to report the dangerous scene unfolding in the park. 

They didn’t call for score-keeping clerks to come and observe the mayhem, they wanted cops to come and shut it down and restore peace and order. 

And so armed and uniformed members of the NYPD were properly dispatched to stop the wild disturbance taking place in a public space. 

Incredible as it is, it seems to have eluded the mayor that it is precisely because the police officers were doing their jobs that they came under violent attack, with some suffering injuries. 

This was certainly not the crime of the century, but it doesn’t need to be. And it certainly was not the nothing burger that the mayor stubbornly continued to claim it was. 

The final sentence in his statement is a piece of false humility that strikes exactly the wrong tone. 

“If anyone’s catching a snowball, it’s me,” he said. Ha ha. 

But in the real world, if one of those punks attacking cops threw a snowball at the mayor, his NYPD security detail would be quick to grab the offender and arrest him. 

But when the cops themselves are attacked, it’s no big deal to him. 

Tisch: ‘It is criminal’ 

Then again, it was no big deal to him when nearly a score of homeless New Yorkers died of hypothermia during January’s winter blast. Like most ideologues, he is impervious to evidence that doesn’t fit his narrative. 

There is one thing that does seem to animate him, and that’s his plan to raise taxes on high-income New Yorkers and spend the cash on free this and free that for others. 

Then, too, he does get excited by every opportunity to denounce Israel. 

As for the snowball attacks on cops, It was left to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to capture the deeper meaning of the moment, which she did in a bold statement of her own about the incident. 

“I want to be very clear: The behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal,” Tisch said. The mayor could take lessons about how to say more while talking less, if he cared to learn. 

Tisch added that detectives have opened an investigation into the matter. 

Good for her — and for New York. 

Unions representing officers and detectives also underscored the seriousness of the event. Asked by reporters about a union leader’s statement that “The individuals involved must be identified, arrested and charged with assault on a police officer,” Mamdani practically scoffed, saying he didn’t see any crimes, “just a snowball fight.” 

It wasn’t a fight — the cops didn’t throw snowballs at anybody. It was an attack on them because they are cops. 

Is it possible he doesn’t know the difference? 

The only virtue of Mamdani’s words is that they accurately capture his lack of commitment to public safety. It’s worth recalling that he was part of the poisonous “defund the police” swamp several years ago and called the NYPD “racist” and “a rogue agency.” 

Kat: ‘Never acceptable’ 

He apologized during last year’s campaign, but there’s no sign his “sorry” was anything other than a head fake to fool voters. 

In fact, his instincts remain extremely negative toward the department, despite the fact that it is almost universally regarded as the best police force in America. 

He recently decided to cancel a plan he inherited that would add 5,000 more officers, with a goal of bolstering the uniformed headcount from 35,000 to 40,000. However, cops are quitting faster than the city can replace them, so the actual number has fallen to about 34,000. 

Shockingly, even Gov. Hochul better understood the significance of the ice and snow assault on cops, saying in a statement that “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.” 

Nonetheless, the incident puts Hochul in a bind. She endorsed Mamdani last year, celebrated his win and has showered his socialist agenda with $2 billion of taxpayer funds, with the promise of more to come. 

How long before her regrets start to come, too? 

Later Tuesday, The Post reported another anti-police incident, saying unidentified vandals slashed the tires on seven marked NYPD cars parked outside a police facility in Brooklyn. 

The cars belong to the Strategic Response Group, which responds to civil disorders and other major events across the five boroughs. 

The specialized unit is a favorite target of the far left, and Mamdani added his two cents during the campaign and promised to disband it. 

He accused it of costing “taxpayers millions in lawsuit settlements” and said it had “brutalized countless New Yorkers exercising their First Amendment rights.” 

Given his anti-NYPD prejudice, it’s no surprise he didn’t see any harm in thugs attacking cops with snow and ice. 

Nor has he expressed any alarm over police cars having their tires slashed in Brooklyn. 

Wise words of Rev. Jackson

The recent passing of the Rev. Jesse Jackson evokes many memories, including a cherished one.

Some years ago, I was leading a small meeting of journalists with him. He was contrasting levels of commitment to social change among two kinds of people, when he stopped to clarify his point.

“It’s like a ham and egg breakfast,” he began, then, with a sly smile, held up his hands about a foot apart, and added: “The pig is making a much bigger and more sincere commitment than the chicken.”

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