Mamdani Invites Discord in DSA By Backing Police Commissioner Tisch

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stoked a civil war within the DSA by backing New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.Ahead of a joint appearance with Ms. Tisch on Tuesday at a ceremony honoring 42 fallen NYPD officers, Mr. Mamdani told a reporter he was sticking with her. The comment came after the Mayor’s Office canceled a scheduled press conference on Tuesday morning one hour before it was set to begin, marking the fifth day in a row Hizzoner has avoided press conferences he usually holds several days a week.The mayor’s refusal to answer questions comes as a civil war is brewing within the DSA and amid accusations the mayor is avoiding public accountability.DSA co-chairs Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer have demanded Mr. Mamdani fire Ms. Tisch over policing tactics. Most notably they object to the Strategic Response Group, which handles mass events including protests. They say the SRG and another unit, the Community Response Team, are deployed to “suppress dissent.” DSA youth members have protested the mayor twice in the past week, forcing his premature exit from a vigil on October 7 and cutting short a press conference the following night. The mayor had attempted to address protesters raging against an ICE enforcement action that resulted in agents firing seven rounds into a vehicle the agency says convicted thief Oscar Belgal, 28, was trying to ram at officers. The usually media-friendly mayor has not held a press conference since that night, when protesters hurled insults and called him “complicit” in the shooting and arrest. “Public accountability isn’t optional when the headlines turn negative — that’s precisely when it matters most,” former Deputy Mayor for Communications Fabien Levy, who served under the Adams administration, tells the Sun. “New Yorkers deserve a mayor who is willing to face the press, address difficult questions, and explain their decisions, regardless of the political climate. That standard should apply to every mayor, including Zohran Mamdani.”On Tuesday the mayor said he would not bow to the DSA’s demands to fire Ms. Tisch and praised her record of “uprooting corruption from the upper echelons of the NYPD while lowering crime” in a video that circulated online.“Jessica Tisch is the police commissioner. I have no plans to change that,” he said. But Young Democratic Socialists are not backing down, with another protest scheduled for Wednesday in front of City College of New York’s North Academic Center.“We DEMAND Zohran Mamdani to use his position of power as mayor to dismantle the SRG and fire Jessica Tisch,” the caption on a social media post created by City College of New York’s Young DSA chapter reads. The protest has been endorsed by other campus chapters at Hunter College and The New School, as well as multiple campus chapters of anti-Zionist group, Students for Justice in Palestine, of which Mr. Mamdani was a member during his university days, the same groups that protested him on October 7. James Ray, a leader within Philadelphia’s DSA chapter, said Mr. Mamdani’s loyalty to Ms. Tisch amounts to “dying on the dumbest hill imaginable,” in light of the “countless movement organizations,” including his own party, calling for her firing.Fissures had begun emerging between the mayor and DSA, of which he is a leading figure, after he failed to keep campaign promises to overhaul the New York Police Department. On the campaign trail the mayor called for the SRG to be dismantled and an office of community safety created to respond to events like mental health episodes.

Mamdani Invites Discord in DSA By Backing Police Commissioner Tisch

Mamdani Invites Discord in DSA By Backing Police Commissioner Tisch

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