What began as an organized snowball fight in Washington Square Park has now escalated into a citywide dispute over whether what unfolded was harmless chaos or criminal conduct.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very disturbing. This was an attack on two New York City police officers,\u201d Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
According to police, the officers were taken to the hospital with head, face and neck injuries
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The two officers were responding to a disorderly conduct call Monday at the park where a union representative says they quickly became targets
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While Mayor Zohran Mamdani dismissed the incident as kids at a snowball fight, his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, called it \u201cdisgraceful\u201d and \u201ccriminal\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani disagrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the videos I have seen, it looks like a snowball fight,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n
Those same videos show officers trying to back away from the melee, then scrambling for another exit as snowballs continue to be hurled at them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were surrounded by a group which they described as mainly adults who were blocking both entrances [to] the park,\u201d Hendry said.<\/p>\n
The two officers were responding to a disorderly conduct call Monday at the park where Hendry says they quickly became targets. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a snowball fight, no. This was ice chunks that were smashed on a police officer\u2019s head,\u201d Hendry said.<\/p>\n
According to the union president, rocks were also thrown at the officers.<\/p>\n
Video shows the cops trying to escape the park, shoving people aside as they are followed by the crowd. Even backup officers are seen being chased down the street by the crowd as they arrive to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe individuals who did this need to be identified, captured, arrested and then prosecuted by our Manhattan [district attorney\u2019s] office,\u201d Hendry said.<\/p>\n
Police say the officers were taken to the hospital with head, face and neck injuries.<\/p>\n
According to Hendry, the officers are still dealing with pain and headaches.<\/p>\n
Police released images of two suspects involved, asking for the public\u2019s help to identify them.<\/p>\n
The mayor says there should be no criminal charges, instead highlighting the treatment all city employees deserve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey and our entire city workforce deserve to be treated with respect,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
While the mayor dismissed the incident as kids at a snowball fight, his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, called it \u201cdisgraceful\u201d and \u201ccriminal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What began as an organized snowball fight in Washington Square Park has now escalated into a citywide dispute…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[387,25,388,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,308,27],"class_list":["post-144387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-louis-finley","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}