New York City’s fledgling mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is barely a week into the job and already learning a hard lesson of City Hall: when cops are involved in life-or-death situations, silence — or worse, vague moralizing — doesn’t play well.
Mamdani is now facing serious blowback for his 16-hour delay in responding to two police-involved shootings that unfolded just hours apart Thursday — a delay that reportedly irritated NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch herself.
Despite being briefed by Tisch shortly after each incident, Mamdani waited until 9:44 a.m. Friday to issue a statement on X. And when he finally did, the message managed to upset just about everyone in law enforcement circles.
Instead of acknowledging the circumstances — one involving a blade-wielding man holding an elderly patient hostage in a hospital, the other a road-rage suspect waving what appeared to be a firearm — Mamdani emphasized that the NYPD would conduct an “internal investigation.”
That wording raised eyebrows inside One Police Plaza, where such investigations are not only routine, but automatic.
“I know many are eager for answers,” Mamdani wrote. “The NYPD is conducting an internal investigation — I will work with Commissioner Tisch to ensure this is as thorough and swift as possible.”
Translation, according to police sources: let’s subtly suggest wrongdoing without saying it outright.
Sources say the phrasing implied suspicion toward officers who had just responded to violent, chaotic situations — a familiar move from a mayor who once loudly embraced the “defund the police” movement before quietly soft-pedaling it during the campaign.
Commissioner Tisch, for her part, was reportedly seen storming out of City Hall later that morning following a meeting with administration officials. While one source claimed she appeared visibly unhappy, another downplayed it. Either way, Tisch’s public response spoke volumes.
“Officers were engaged in two police-involved shootings, and there is every indication that their actions were nothing short of heroic,” Tisch posted on X around noon — a message many inside the department viewed as a not-so-subtle rebuke of City Hall’s weak-kneed messaging.
The Incidents Mamdani Took His Time Addressing
The first shooting occurred around 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. A bloodied, unstable man — later identified as Michael Lynch, 62, a former NYPD officer who resigned in the 1990s — barricaded himself in a hospital room with an elderly patient and a security guard, wielding a jagged piece of a broken toilet as a weapon.
Officers repeatedly deployed Tasers. They didn’t work. With lives at stake, police used deadly force. Lynch was pronounced dead.
The second shooting happened near 11 p.m. in Manhattan, when officers responded to what appeared to be a road rage incident. The suspect, Dmitry Zass, 37, exited a BMW holding what looked like a handgun. Officers fired. Zass later died at the hospital.
The weapon turned out to be a realistic-looking imitation Sig Sauer, and sources say Zass’s parents had called 911 earlier that day, reporting he was attacking his father with a gun. They had obtained an order of protection against him just hours before the shooting.
All of this information, sources say, was provided to City Hall — in real time — including to Mamdani, his top aides, and the communications team.
And yet, when the mayor finally spoke, he offered no explicit support for the officers involved, instead lamenting “tragedies” and invoking the need for “genuine public safety.”
That phrase, in particular, baffled law enforcement insiders.
“I don’t know what else would qualify as ‘genuine public safety’ other than protecting an elderly patient and a security guard from a man armed with a sharp weapon,” one source said.
