After assembly with the family members of the NYPD officer killed on this week’s mass capturing, Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani distanced himself Wednesday from anti-police messages he posted on social media years in the past, calling them “out of step” along with his present imaginative and prescient.
Mamdani, marking his first public look since getting back from a 10-day journey to his native Uganda, additionally excoriated Andrew Cuomo and different critics for seizing on his years-old posts within the speedy aftermath of Monday’s Midtown Manhattan bloodbath, which left NYPD officer Didarul Islam and three civilians lifeless.
“It is beyond me that politicians are looking to use these days to score such cynical political points on the very day that I held the father of Officer Islam in my arms, as he could not utter a single word and as I felt him sobbing at the memory of his 36-year-old son who will never come home,” Mamdani mentioned on the Manhattan headquarters of 32 BJ, a politically supportive union that represented one of many different victims of Monday’s capturing, constructing service employee Aland Etienne.
Zohran Mamdani speaks at 32BJ SEIU Thursday, July 30, 2025 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/New York Every day Information)
Mamdani, who mentioned he instantly after touchdown at JFK went to satisfy with Islam’s household at their Bronx residence for about an hour over breakfast, informed reporters the late cop’s family members knowledgeable him that they had deliberate to go to a water park collectively in New Jersey on Wednesday.
“This is a time to honor those memories, this is a time to lead this city in coming together, not a moment to try and score the very points that turned so many New Yorkers away from politics,” he mentioned.
Suspected shooter Shane Tamura’s grotesque assault at 345 Park Ave. has marked one of many first main challenges for Mamdani since he defeated Cuomo in final month’s Democratic mayoral main.
NYPD officers are pictured exterior 345 Park Ave. Tuesday, July 29, 2025, in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/New York Every day Information)
Tweets Mamdani posted in 2020, by which he referred to as for the NYPD to be dismantled and blasted the division as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” have been seized on because the capturing by his critics, who say they present he’d be unfit to steer the police division as mayor.
Cuomo — who’s operating once more in opposition to Mamdani in November’s mayoral election as an impartial candidate — even questioned Tuesday whether or not Mamdani’s condolences for Islam’s household have been real.
“I spoke to the liaison to the family, and I said, ‘I’d love to express my condolences. Whatever they feel is appropriate.’ I want to respect their privacy,” mentioned Cuomo.
Since launching his mayoral marketing campaign, Mamdani has maintained he now not helps calls to defund the NYPD, saying he now needs to maintain the division’s headcount flat and launch a brand new company that’d concentrate on psychological well being response to let cops prioritize preventing crime.
In addressing his tweets at Wednesday’s press convention, Mamdani mentioned they’re “out of step with the way in which I not only view police officers and the immense work that they do in this city, but also the seriousness with which we need to treat that work.”
He additionally accused Cuomo — who resigned as governor in 2021 amid sexual {and professional} misconduct accusations he denies — of being “far more comfortable in the past.”
“If he wants to continue to try and litigate a race based upon tweets that are clearly out of step with the vision that I have, with the statements that I have put forward, then he is free do so,” Mamdani mentioned, “because what he will find is that New Yorkers are more focused on the now and the vision that we have for the future.”
The Democratic mayoral nominee, who’s polling as the favourite to win November’s election, received backing Wednesday from Shamsul Haque, a retired NYPD lieutenant who co-founded the division’s Bangladeshi American Police Affiliation.
Mayor Adams, who’s additionally operating as an impartial in November’s election, met with Islam’s family members at a Manhattan hospital Monday evening after the capturing and has largely steered away from taking political pictures at Mamdani because the tragedy. In a tv interview Wednesday morning, although, Adams did name a few of Mamdani’s public security proposals “extremely dangerous.”
Initially Revealed: July 30, 2025 at 3:58 PM EDT
