Mamdani, A Day Later, Weighs In After Nypd Shoots Two

NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani remarked for the first time Friday on a pair of shootings at the hands of NYPD officers — nearly 12 hours after the dramatic incidents unfolded.

At around 11 p.m. Thursday, officers in Manhattan shot a motorist who police said turned on them with an imitation gun that appeared to be real. Hours earlier, at 5:30 p.m., NYPD officers killed an armed man inside a Brooklyn hospital, an incident that harkened back to one the mayor’s marquee campaign promises: to separate NYPD officers from mental health calls.

It was not until the following morning at 9:44 a.m. — the first news cycle over and done — that Mamdani issued a statement about the shootings, which he called “devastating to all New Yorkers.”

“I know many are eager for answers. The NYPD is conducting an internal investigation — I will work with Commissioner [Jessica] Tisch to ensure this is as thorough and swift as possible,” he wrote in a post on X. “These tragedies are painful, whether they take place steps from our home or miles away. They are a reminder of the immense work that must be done to deliver genuine public safety — work Commissioner Tisch and I are undertaking together every day.”

Police-involved shootings present a dicey prospect for the mayor given his past criticism of the NYPD, which included support for defunding the police. Some in his base also remain opposed to much of the department’s actions. At the same time, Mamdani has sought to reassure more moderate Democrats and the business community that he’s serious about fighting crime — a balancing act that’s difficult to pull off in situations like Thursday’s shootings.

Mamdani said at a subsequent press conference Friday morning that he was briefed the night before but held off speaking publicly to ensure he sent the right message. Speaking to reporters, he largely stuck to his original message while offering praise to the officers that was absent from his earlier missive.

“Last night, officers were placed in incredibly difficult and dangerous circumstances,” he said. “The actions they took, they responded swiftly.”

The message from Tisch was far more direct.

“Every day, the men and women of the NYPD put their lives on the line to protect New Yorkers. Last night was not different,” she wrote in a post on X. “Officers were engaged in two police-involved shootings, and there is every indication that their actions were nothing short of heroic.”

The man slain at Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn — a 62 year old from Brooklyn, according to the NYPD — was reportedly armed with a sharp weapon fashioned out of a broken toilet seat. He threatened to kill bystanders and barricaded himself and two others in a room splattered with blood after he had cut himself, according to police officials. Officers spent several minutes ordering him to drop his weapon before tasing him, firing a weapon at him, struggling with him over the door to the room and ultimately shooting him fatally, police officials said.

While the details of the Brooklyn hospital situation are still being hashed out, the incident raises questions about Mamdani’s pledge to create a Department of Community Safety, which would take responsibility for responding to mental health calls away from the NYPD.

Exactly how the mayor’s department would have handled an incident like the barricaded man — if they would have handled it at all — remains unclear: Mamdani said Friday he would not engage in a hypothetical question about how his new department might have responded in a similar situation.

He did, however, broadly maintain his support for the concept.

“We continue to need an answer to the more than 200,000 mental health calls the NYPD responds to and receives on an annual basis,” he said. “And I do continue to believe in the importance of having a mental health unit dedicated specifically to the mental health crisis.”

The debate over Mamdani’s proposal has included questions about the potential danger to social workers should an interaction turn violent.

An expert on responding to mental health calls, who was granted anonymity to discuss the shooting, said Thursday night’s situation was decidedly a job for the NYPD. In municipalities around the country, including in New York City, emergency call dispatchers use a series of questions to determine the severity of an incident before deciding whether a police presence is warranted.

“A situation where a 911 call comes in and somebody is brandishing a weapon — there’s no world where that would suggest a non-police response,” the expert said. “But that’s not to say the police wouldn’t benefit from getting some assistance on the scene, potentially calming down the individual.”