Mayoral Candidates Respond to NYPD’s Subway Mass Shooting
A controversial police shooting at an outer borough subway station rocks the city. Public opinion divides between New Yorkers who reflexively support the NYPD, and those who are troubled by an incident that ended with four people being shot over a $2.90 fare evasion. What is a mayoral candidate to do?
With four declared challengers running to unseat incumbent Eric Adams in next June’s Democratic primary, New Yorkers were provided a glimpse into how Adams’s would-be successors would deal with the NYPD when the pressure is on. The results weren’t very reassuring. Three candidates ducked and made no public statement. A fourth decried the incident but carefully avoided criticizing the police department. In the end, the clearest and boldest response came from a socialist state legislator from Queens who is seen as likely to enter the race this fall but remains on the sidelines for now.
Zohran Mamdani Outpaced the Field in Mayoral Candidate Response to NYPD’s Sutter Avenue Mass Subway Shooting
By John Tarleton
On Sunday, NYPD officers patrolling the Sutter Avenue L train stop pursued a fare evasion suspect before shooting him on a subway platform. The hail of bullets seriously injured the suspect, 37-year-old Darell Mickles, and three others including another cop and a 26-year-old woman, both who are in stable condition, according to the police department. Gregory Depleche, 49, who was also shot, was on the way to his job at the hospital where he worked for 20 years, according to the Daily News; he was pronounced brain dead on Wednesday.
This incident presents a Rorschach test on how people feel about law enforcement. The “NYPD-can-do-no-wrong” crowd argues the whole situation could have been avoided if Mickles had simply paid his fare. On Friday evening, the NYPD released edited video footage of two police officers firing six shots each at a stationary Mickles.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, a mass shooting is when four or more people are shot. For many New Yorkers, knowing that the NYPD carried out a mass shooting in the presence of subway commuters is jarring, even by the usual standards of their trigger-happy police force.
So, how should an aspiring mayor navigate these competing claims? Do you show unconditional support for the police? Do you act like nothing happened? Do you express disapproval without directly criticizing the NYPD? Or do you speak out boldly and lay the blame on an out-of-control police department?
Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams rushed to the hospital to visit the police officer who was wounded by his colleague but has not visited the two innocent bystanders who were also injured by police gunfire. In his tweet, Adams turned logic on its head and blamed one of the victims of the shooting and lauded the police officers who caused the carnage.
“We have arrested the suspect who put so many lives in danger,” Adams commented. “I cannot thank these officers enough for their bravery.”
Three other mayoral contenders — New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, former Comptroller Scott Stringer and State Senator Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) — have remained silent.
A fourth candidate, State Senator Jessica Ramos (D-Queens), has tweeted twice about the shooting. On Sunday, she delivered a tepid first tweet, lamenting that “gun violence is a scourge on our neighborhoods,” promising to hold the wounded officer, other victims and the Brownsville community in her prayers.
On Tuesday, Ramos commented again, writing a more pointed tweet that criticized the police for opening fire over a $2.90 subway fare — without tying their actions to a larger institutional failure.
In the end, one likely candidate, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) showed why he could generate a lot of enthusiasm on the left. The socialist legislator commented not only on the absurdity of the Sutter Avenue subway shooting, but on the culture of impunity within the NYPD, which has only grown worse under Mayor Adams.
A New York City mayoral election won’t be determined on twitter. However, the responses (or lack thereof) of the candidates offer a preview of the kinds of campaigns they will run over the next nine months.
Adams will unabashedly defend the corrupt and broken status quo he has presided over for nearly three years.
Lander, Stringer and Myrie, it appears, will go out of their way to not anger the NYPD or its powerful unions, lest they be tarnished as “anti-police” or “soft on crime.”
Ramos, whose strong suit is her recordon economic-justice issues and immigrant rights, will try to balance the concerns of progressives about the NYPD without antagonizing voters who might welcome her bread-and-butter appeals but also tend to hold positive views about the police.
In his comments, Mamdani tied the reckless actions of the Sutter Avenue cops to a systemic problem with the police force. Seen from that perspective, the problem is no longer individual officers who need better training, but an institution that has shed any sense of accountability to the public it ostensibly serves.
If Mamdani enters the race, he won’t have much institutional support outside of the New York City DSA, his political home. He will be free to continue clearly and boldly on any number of issues, compared to the more cautious, move-to-the-center approach of his opponents. It will be refreshing for voters who want an anti-establishment candidate.
And with New York City’s ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to rank their top five preferences, New Yorkers who find they agree with Mamdani’s socialist message won’t have to worry about casting a spoiler vote.
Indypendent News Hour Update:
On Tuesday’s Indypendent News Hour on WBAI-99.5 FM, we had a wide-ranging discussion about the mayoral race with political analyst Michael Lange and Eli Valentin of Instituto Latino. Later in the show, we heard from embattled tenants in Sunnyside, Queens who have found collective power in organizing against their notorious slumlord. Tune into our next show this Tuesday 5-6 pm. To listen to the show, click here.
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