New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s defense of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) this week has shown that leading a city and opposing its institutions from the outside are two different jobs. Two fatal police shootings in five days have put that distinction on full display. Police killed two people between Monday and Friday morning.
Monday, officers shot and killed Pamela Cisneros, 49, of Queens, after she allegedly stabbed two people in Times Square, killing one and wounding the other. Cisneros had a documented mental health history with the department going back to 2018 but no criminal record. She allegedly threatened officers for roughly four minutes, telling them: "I would rather kill both of you," before advancing with two knives still in hand.
Two officers opened fire. Four days later, before dawn Friday, police shot and killed a man on the Brooklyn Bridge. He'd climbed the span's suspension cables, allegedly told officers he had a bomb and wanted to die, and after an hourlong standoff started descending the cable toward them with a knife extended.
The officers, clipped to the same cable for safety, couldn't retreat fast enough. Mamdani backed the officers involved in both incidents: "I want to thank the NYPD officers who stepped in and prevented a horrific attack from becoming even worse," he told reporters on Monday. "This is what the men and women of this department do every single day to keep our city safe." Mamdani spent years calling for the NYPD to be defunded and dismantled as a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) activist.
This time, he didn't hedge. The two shootings offer a sharp contrast between the mayor now running City Hall and the 28-year-old assemblyman posting about the NYPD six years ago. He was also asked whether his own signature public safety program, the Office of Community Safety, which sends mental health responders instead of police to certain calls, should have been deployed instead.
"That would not be applicable when there is the threat of violence," he said, "and what we are speaking about is an alleged perpetrator who stabbed two individuals before then being engaged by police." Before dawn on Friday, police shot and killed a man on the Brooklyn Bridge. Mamdani called the procedure "standard" while noting that an investigation will follow. "As is standard when an NYPD officer discharges a firearm, the department will conduct an internal investigation, and body-worn camera footage will be released," Mamdani wrote on X.
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