In his four months in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said multiple times that the New York City Police Department does not collaborate or coordinate with the federal government in civil immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has said the same plenty of times over the course of her longer tenure.<\/p>\n
New York City\u2019s sanctuary laws broadly prohibit such collaboration.<\/p>\n
But after a chaotic scene outside Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn on Saturday \u2013\u00a0toward the end of which NYPD officers cleared a path for ICE officers to haul a detainee into their car, and one NYPD officer closed the federal officer\u2019s car door for him after they loaded the man inside \u2013\u00a0some local elected officials and advocates, including members of Mamdani\u2019s progressive base, are saying such broad declarations aren\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey provided security for ICE,\u201d said the local Council Member Sandy Nurse, who was present for several hours of the late night and early morning enforcement action on Saturday. \u201cFrom the community\u2019s point of view, that looks like coordination. It looks like collaboration. It looks like collusion. The NYPD might not feel that way. \u2026 But there\u2019s a question on the table of \u2018What does it mean for the NYPD to provide security for ICE to leave an area with a person in custody?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The standoff between protesters and ICE occurred outside the medical center late Saturday when ICE agents took a man there who they had arrested earlier in the day. The man, a Nigerian immigrant named Chidozie Wilson Okeke, had requested medical attention after the agents used force<\/a> in his arrest, multiple outlets reported.<\/p>\n The NYPD responded to the scene outside the hospital at 10:26 p.m. after receiving 911 calls about disorderly protesters, according to the police department. None of the elected officials reached by City & State disputed this sequence of events, and no one pushed back on the NYPD\u2019s and City Hall\u2019s statements that there was no prior coordination between ICE and the police department.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But those elected officials took issue with how events unfolded later in the night, when officers began blocking<\/a> the protesters from the ambulance bay, with one video showing police officers pushing protesters back to clear a path for ICE agents to haul Okeke out of the hospital and put him into their vehicle. An NYPD spokesperson said that they have a responsibility to clear a path if someone is blocking an emergency exit to a hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nurse said that protesters weren\u2019t blocking the ambulance bay for the entirety of the standoff and questioned how the NYPD knew to start forming a path for the ICE agents to exit around 2 a.m. if there hadn\u2019t been communication between them. The NYPD spokesperson said they weren\u2019t aware of any communication and reiterated that their officers showed up in response to 911 calls.<\/p>\n In one video<\/a> taken during the night, one officer is shown throwing a protester to the ground. When asked about it on Monday, Mamdani called it \u201cincredibly disturbing\u201d and said that it was being actively investigated.<\/p>\n In another video shared by the New York Immigration Coalition, an NYPD captain is shown speaking with apparent protesters and appearing to call Mamdani \u201ctemporary,\u201d \u201cexpendable\u201d and \u201ctotal nonsense.\u201d Mamdani said on Monday that he had not seen the video, and a spokesperson didn\u2019t answer when asked again on Tuesday. But Gothamist reported<\/a> on Tuesday that the captain had been transferred to an unnamed post.<\/p>\n In total, eight protesters were arrested by the NYPD, for charges including resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief. In the chaos, ICE agents pepper sprayed four NYPD officers, according to the police department.<\/p>\n While Mamdani was adamant that there was no coordination between the NYPD and ICE on Saturday night, his allies said that it looked like collaboration on the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe NYPD must be held accountable for their continuous violence against protestors,\u201d New York City Democratic Socialists of America co-chair Gustavo Gordillo said in a statement. \u201cWe need to prevent any possible collaboration between ICE and NYPD legislatively and we need to disband the (Strategic Response Group) yesterday. ICE out of NY.\u201d<\/p>\n Assembly Member Claire Valdez, a democratic socialist who Mamdani endorsed to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez in the Brooklyn-Queens congressional district that includes the Wyckoff hospital, said in a statement<\/a> Monday afternoon that the police department \u201ccannot collaborate with a rogue federal agency terrorizing our neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe need a full investigation into any NYPD contact with ICE that night, clear and public guidelines for how NYPD responds to protests of federal immigration enforcement, and accountability for the actions taken that night,\u201d she added in another statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier in the day on Monday, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who is also running for Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s seat, held an \u201cemergency\u201d press conference with Nurse, neighboring Council Member Jennifer Guti\u00e9rrez and others calling for ICE to end enforcement actions in New York. \u201cThis idea that the NYPD would be involved in any way in supporting (ICE\u2019s) work in any way is very frustrating,\u201d Reynoso told City & State later.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those congressional candidates\u2019 comments on the ICE action and protest response have been closely watched in the context of the race. Reynoso noted that he didn\u2019t wait to make a statement about the protest response until after Mamdani, a dig at Valdez, who put out a statement later on Monday. Council Member Julie Won, who is also running for the congressional seat, denounced<\/a> ICE\u2019s actions on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n Some of the people who expressed frustration with the NYPD\u2019s response to the ICE action didn\u2019t offer specific prescriptions for what the department should do differently in a situation where protesters are blocking an emergency exit which the NYPD said they are obligated to clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reynoso said that the NYPD showing up for crowd control \u2013 in this case, to make sure people aren\u2019t entering the hospital and to keep people safe \u2013\u00a0is fine. \u201cWhat they shouldn\u2019t have done is escorting and supporting ICE as they brought the detainee into the car, helping them close the door to the car,\u201d he said. \u201cThat image is a tough image to see.\u201d<\/p>\n But several people called for more clarity from the administration and the NYPD about what is and isn\u2019t part of the NYPD\u2019s protocol in a situation like this. Nurse said that her own community is left confused when they\u2019re told that the NYPD doesn\u2019t collaborate with ICE on civil enforcement and then witnesses the events of Saturday night. \u201cPeople from the neighborhood are like, \u2018Was the 83rd (precinct) helping ICE? And I\u2019m like, \u2018I can\u2019t answer that actually,\u2019\u201d Nurse said. \u201cIn the big, macro level, no they were not. But on that particular night, when they needed to leave with that man when ICE was clearly outnumbered and needed to leave with that man, yes, they did help them. It\u2019s confusing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to know, when you\u2019re called to something, are you there to stand with them? Or are you there to stand with us and keep us safe, keep the people safe?\u201d added Guti\u00e9rrez, who attended a briefing with the 83rd precinct in Brooklyn on Monday about the incident. \u201cI still don\u2019t have an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n