NYPD officers responded to a call about a large, disorderly group in Washington Square Park on Monday afternoon. Upon their arrival, police were pelted with snowballs by individuals from the unruly mob. Video footage from the incident shows several officers being struck in the head and face.
According to Fox News, “EMS responded to the scene and transported several officers to the hospital for treatment. They were listed in stable condition.”
Addressing the event in a Monday night statement, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch wrote:
The NYPD is aware of certain videos taken earlier today in Washington Square Park showing individuals attacking cops. I want to be very clear: The behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal. Our detectives are investigating this matter.
In reply to Tisch’s remarks, Professor Jacobson noted, “Unfortunately in NYC nothing will happen to them, and if by chance NYPD arrests them, they will be let go to celebrations.” Sadly, he is right.
After facing calls on social media to condemn the incident, just before noon on Tuesday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who once supported the “defund the police” movement and called the NYPD “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety,” offered a tepid response. Rather than denouncing the attacks, he told residents to treat police officers with respect.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, defeated by Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race, called the episode disgraceful. “But with a mayor who has a history of calling the police ‘racist, evil, wicked and corrupt,’ he set the tone,” Cuomo said. “Words have consequences. We are seeing that in the growing disrespect for law enforcement — just as we’ve seen it in the rise in antisemitism. Real leaders understand that. This mayor does not. @NYCMayor must denounce this at once.”
Cuomo can virtue signal all he wants, but the truth is that the elimination of cash bail for “most misdemeanor and non-violent felony charges, including stalking, assault without serious injury, burglary, many drug offenses, and some categories of arson and robbery,” occurred on his watch. He signed the bill in 2019 to much fanfare. The law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2020, and the results speak for themselves.
I also remember multiple incidents in July 2019 in which groups threw buckets of water on NYPD officers as they were making arrests. A video of one of those occasions can be viewed here. The officers are doused with water and finally, an officer is struck in the head by the bucket itself. I recall being shocked at the time and wondering about the precedent being set.
By the following year, amid the unrest that followed George Floyd’s death, instances of hostility and abuse directed toward police officers increased markedly.
Responding to footage of New Yorkers hurling snowballs at police officers, one X user remarked that he never imagined he would “see a day in America when people would feel comfortable doing this.” He added that it saddened him to witness “our heroes treated like villains.”
He likely remembers the days of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s leadership. In 1994, Giuliani implemented the “broken windows” theory of policing — the idea that addressing even minor offenses would deter more serious crimes and foster broader public order. During that period, the city experienced a marked decline in crime.
Those days are long gone. For reasons that boggle the mind, New Yorkers continue to elect Democrats — and even a socialist — then express surprise when crime rises and the city’s condition deteriorates.
While liberals minimize the seriousness of this incident on social media — ‘it was only snowballs, after all’ — that reaction misses the larger point. This episode signals a deep erosion of civic norms.
The “defund the police” movement helped normalize a reflexive hostility toward law enforcement that blurs the line between protest and contempt. Even seemingly minor acts of aggression contribute to a culture in which public authority is treated as illegitimate and disorder as entertainment. A society that shrugs at small acts of disrespect shouldn’t be surprised when larger breakdowns in trust and accountability follow.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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