fter the shooting, the Democratic Socialists of America, several legislators, and Avila Chevalier all called on Mamdani to fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and demanded the mayor uphold his campaign pledge to disband the NYPD’s infamous Strategic Response Group. Mamdani repeatedly refused to fire Tisch but said he was reviewing the 24-hour period around the shooting. When asked directly about Avila Chevalier being thrown to the ground, the mayor called it unacceptable, saying, “That is not something I will look to justify.” He reminded New Yorkers to be patient with efforts to reform the NYPD, ordered a review of the department’s use-of-force policies, and added funding for the inspector general’s office. But once again, he stood by his commissioner, citing “her record of uprooting corruption from the upper echelons of the NYPD while lowering crime across our city.”

Noticeably absent from any of Mamdani’s public remarks about the NYPD or Tisch was any public acknowledgment of the NYPD officers in relation to ICE agents during the Belgal incident.

Federal and city law enforcement occupy similar spaces but never really interact with each other. Mamdani made no mention of the ways in which the actions of federal agents put pressure on the NYPD as mediators — the primary function of police — to liaise in moments of conflict.

The NYPD typically relishes this role, which is why the department consumes so much of New York’s budget and shuns any attempts to redirect funds to other services that might reduce the need for police mediation to begin with. ICE forces local police to make choices in policy and in practice about how to deal with violent (often illegal) immigration operations.

If the NYPD believes itself to be the thin blue line, on which side of order and chaos do New York’s force and Mamdani believe these federal outside agitators to be?