Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

New York is still reeling from Monday’s mass shooting at a midtown office building that left four people dead including an NYPD officer, and the impact of the event is being felt in the city’s mayoral race as well. The shocking attack ignited a contentious debate about public safety among the candidates, and it didn’t take long for some of them to start attacking their rivals’ responses to the tragedy.

Both Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams have used the shooting to suggest that Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani would undermine the police and make the city less safe. Cuomo, who trails Mamdani in polls by double digits, has also repeatedly criticized Mamdani’s response to the shooting itself, going so far as to dismiss the sympathy he has expressed for the victims.

Mamdani, who was in Uganda visiting loved ones at the time of the shooting, returned to the city Wednesday morning and soon after met with the family of slain NYPD officer Didarul Islam. Mamdani recounted the visit at a press conference held later that afternoon, saying Islam’s relatives are “heartbroken” at the loss of the married father of soon-to-be three children and that he will attend the fallen officer’s funeral at the invitation of his family.

The assemblymember also reflected on the lives of the other three victims, security guard Aland Etienne, Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, and Rudin Management associate Julia Hyman — and he echoed Governor Kathy Hochul’s call for a national assault-weapons ban. “As mayor, I will lead calls to ensure that we pass the legislation necessary beyond New York, such that every New Yorker can rest assured that we need not prepare for the next iteration of this horrific mass shooting,” Mamdani said.

Mamdani was joined by Smith Etienne, the brother of Aland Etienne, as well as the leaders of 32BJ SEIU and the Bangladeshi American Police Association, which represented Etienne and Islam respectively.

But after his prepared remarks, Mamdani was largely prompted to respond to questions about his public-safety stances following extensive criticism from Cuomo on Tuesday about Mamdani’s past support for defunding the police and painting his sympathy for the victims as disingenuous.

Mamdani “said that today because it was in his political interest, but everything he has said for years is the exact opposite,” Cuomo told the Daily News in an interview. “You do a 180 right after this incident … and it’s just coincidental that the election is a few months away? Do you buy that?”

Cuomo reiterated his attacks in numerous interviews, telling CNN that he thinks Mamdani doesn’t understand the importance of the NYPD or of public safety. “He has a consistent record that has gone back for years where he has been highly critical — not just of the police department as an institution — but of the individual police officers. And you can’t take back ten years of public statements, and very harsh public statements, and expect anyone to take you seriously,” he said.

On Wednesday, Mamdani said his past comments on policing are “clearly out of step” with the campaign he is currently running, reiterating that he intends to work with police officers and has no intention of defunding the department. Mamdani also pushed back, suggesting that Cuomo would rather focus on years-old tweets than his current platform. “I would say that for the former governor to have spent an entire day speaking almost exclusively about me and barely about the New Yorkers who have been killed is indicative of the very politics New Yorkers want to leave in the past,” he said.

Mayor Adams, who was one of the first on the scene on the night of the shooting, also criticized Cuomo’s attack on Mamdani, telling the Daily News in a statement, “It is deeply disappointing — and frankly despicable — that during a moment of tragedy, when our city is mourning the loss of one of its own, former governor Cuomo would choose to inject politics.”

But in a Wednesday interview with CNBC, Adams said he disagreed with Mamdani’s past promise to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, a unit that has been accused of violence against protesters and was deployed to the scene in the aftermath of the shooting.

“We are dealing in an environment where there are not only threats of terrorism, but terrorist acts and even lone wolves that will go in and carry out these functions. When you start dismantling the pieces of the law enforcement apparatus that are specifically designed to carry out functions, that is extremely dangerous,” he said. “And a lack of knowledge and understanding of these roles really could harm law enforcement.”

On the SRG, Mamdani said that the group was initially intended for emergency responses but that the units have often been used in response to protests throughout the city, suggesting that might change under his potential tenure. “There is a need to ensure that every act we take is one that is actually delivering public safety, and what we see right now, especially with regards to how we respond to protests, is not in line with that,” he said.

More on the shooting

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