A New York police captain was transferred to a less prominent role on Tuesday, one day after a video began circulating that showed him, while on duty, calling Mayor Zohran Mamdani \u201cexpendable\u201d and \u201can embarrassment and total nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The captain, James G. Wilson, 51, was moved to the communications division from his position as the executive officer of the 94th Precinct, which covers the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, according to an internal police document and a police spokesman.<\/p>\n
A disciplinary process has begun for Captain Wilson, whose comments violated the Police Department\u2019s ban on expressing political opinions about a political party while on duty, a police spokesman said. A transfer to the communications division, the 911 call center in the Bronx, is a less visible post than executive officer, which is the second-highest ranking position in the precinct and deals frequently with the public.<\/p>\n
The video, posted on Monday<\/a> to the Instagram account @untilfreedom, was taken on Saturday night in Bushwick, Brooklyn, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the incident. It was near where 200 protesters had gathered outside a hospital to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from taking an immigrant who was a patient there. Many of the protesters clashed with the police<\/a>, leading to eight arrests and accusations that the department was helping ICE. City law bars police officers from helping ICE conduct immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had no prior awareness or coordination regarding the ICE operation that took place,\u201d the police said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n A spokesman for Mr. Mamdani declined to comment on the video.<\/p>\n The mayor, formerly a critic of the Police Department, has been careful not to anger the rank and file since taking office. During the mayoral campaign, he apologized for having called the department \u201cracist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety\u201d in 2020, when he was running for assemblyman in Queens. But some union leaders questioned<\/a> Mr. Mamdani\u2019s sincerity.<\/p>\n In the video, Captain Wilson is one of many police officers and supervisors standing in the street near Wyckoff Heights Medical Center. The video opens with the captain saying, \u201cHe\u2019s a temporary, he\u2019s expendable, he\u2019s temporary. Who\u2019s Mamdani?\u201d Someone off camera says, \u201cHe\u2019s your boss.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNah. He\u2019s total nonsense,\u201d Captain Wilson says. \u201cHe\u2019s an embarrassment and total nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n A person off camera says, \u201cYo! You think your mayor is an embarrassment?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot my mayor,\u201d the captain replies, smiling slightly.<\/p>\n Later in the 40-second video he says, still smiling, \u201cAll Democrats, no, waste of human race.\u201d<\/p>\n Officers are prohibited from endorsing or publicly expressing personal views \u201cconcerning the merits of any political party or candidate for public office,\u201d according to the department\u2019s administrative guide.<\/p>\n It was Captain Wilson\u2019s comments about Democrats that led to the disciplinary process, according to the police.<\/p>\n The mayor\u2019s decision to retain Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who worked for former Mayor Eric Adams, was seen in part as an attempt to allay some of police officers\u2019 skepticism toward Mr. Mamdani and show he was serious about hiring administrators who don\u2019t agree with him ideologically.<\/p>\n Mr. Mamdani has also been careful not to push for changes to the department that he once championed, like immediately disbanding the Strategic Response Group, a specialized unit charged with maintaining order during large-scale demonstrations, which had been accused of heavy-handed tactics during the George Floyd protests in 2020. He also said he was open to keeping the department\u2019s criminal database<\/a>, which collects and stores the names of thousands of people, many of them juveniles, whom the police suspect of being gang members.<\/p>\n But the mayor disagreed publicly with Commissioner Tisch in February<\/a> when he said that people who pelted officers with snowballs during a snowball fight in Washington Square Park should not be prosecuted.<\/p>\n