New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani seemed to hope cooler heads would prevail after a Monday snowball melee in Washington Square Park left two police officers with minor injuries and a department demanding justice.
A mid-blizzard meetup of several dozen New Yorkers went from playful to precarious when police arrived to control the crowd, only to be promptly pelted with snowballs and chunks of ice.
According to New York City law enforcement’s labor union, the fracas “landed two police officers in the hospital with head and face injuries.”
In the wake of the scuffle, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said authorities had launched an investigation into the “disgraceful” and “criminal” incident.
But the mayor tried to temper Tisch’s pledge during a Wednesday press conference, telling reporters he didn’t see behavior that fit the definition of criminal assault in the video of the frosty free-for-all.
“I’ve said time and time again that I, having seen these videos, to me, it was a snowball fight that got out of hand and it should be treated accordingly,” Mamdani maintained.
He did not try to dismiss the officers’ injuries, however, repeatedly rebuking the aggressors as he told New Yorkers, “Officers, like all city workers, have been out in a historic blizzard, keeping New Yorkers safe and cars moving. Treat them with respect. If anyone’s catching a snowball, it’s me.”
Asked if he had plans to ban public gatherings with the same potential to go south, the mayor mustered up as much poise as possible before saying, “I’m not going to be banning snowball fights or organized snowball fights.”
Video from Monday’s meetup shows police at the mercy of dozens of jeering, ice-armed civilians, several of whom were subsequently seen getting roughed up by authorities.
Though the city had nothing to do with the social media-organized event, Mamdani critics seized on the incident as an opportunity to accuse him of failed leadership.
Ryan Murphy via Getty Images
Eric Adams, the former mayor and a career police officer, called the commotion “disgusting behavior” in a Tuesday X post where he said politicians who “bash the police and refuse to have their backs are setting a terrible example.”
Not one to miss a chance to wade into culture wars, famously winter-averse Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called the debacle “disgusting” while reposting Adams’ message.
“I’m amazed that NYPD officers continue to go to work with a mayor who disrespects them so much,” he wrote of Mamdani, who previously supported combatting the city’s over-policing problem by reallocating funding for law enforcement but shifted his stance during his 2025 mayoral campaign.
Criticism from the mayor’s political adversaries was bolstered by minor media hysteria over the blizzard brawl, with one pearl-clutching headline from the New York Post reading, “Mamdani refuses to call mob launching snowballs at cops a ‘criminal’ act, says it just ’looks like a snowball fight.”
Another Politico story had a loaded headline that asked, “Is Zohran responsible for this snowball fight?” while the Associated Press declared, “Mamdani’s relationship with NYPD gets icy after officers were pelted in a snowball fight.”
