even as the NYPD investigates it as an assault<\/a>. Police said two officers suffered lacerations to the face. Detectives are seeking to identify four males in connection with the incident.<\/p>\nPolice Commissioner Jessica Tisch has called the conduct criminal, drawing a contrast with the mayor\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n
The mayor praised the NYPD as the heart of the city\u2019s storm response and said officers should be treated with respect. But when asked again about possible charges, Mamdani reiterated his view.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it was a snowball fight that got out of hand, and it should be treated accordingly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mamdani fielded questions at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, where he was encouraging parents to sign up for free pre-K and 3-K programs ahead of Friday\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n
He was also asked about being mentioned by President Donald Trump during Tuesday night\u2019s State of the Union address.<\/p>\n
Trump, criticizing a city program that pays residents to shovel snow during winter storms, said it was \u201cbad policy,\u201d before arguing that identification is required to get paid but not to vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet they don\u2019t want identification for the greatest privilege of them all \u2014 voting in America,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Mamdani said he was pleased the snow-shoveling program was receiving attention.<\/p>\n
The mayor was also asked about his absence from a \u201ctax the rich\u201d rally in Albany. He said it was no sign he has backed off his campaign to press Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and corporations to help close a budget gap of nearly $5.5 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani toughened his rhetoric Wednesday about a large snowball fight in Washington Square Park where police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[109,25,13408,9,24,55,54,12,56,87,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-146021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-dan-rivoli","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146021","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=146021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}