Mamdani’s allies at DSA want Commissioner Tisch out; City Hall says no

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing a demand from New York City’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America: remove Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. The call followed an arrest in Marble Hill late Thursday during which an ICE agent shot Oscar Belgal, 28.

The chapter, which Mamdani has described as his “political home,” put out a statement Friday saying the NYPD had collaborated with federal immigration agents and mistreated protesters who gathered after the Marble Hill shooting. It said Tisch should be held responsible. “If the commissioner can’t put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired,” the statement said.

City Hall says Jessica Tisch stays as police commissioner

The mayor’s office rejected the idea. “Jessica Tisch is the police commissioner and there are no plans to change that,” spokesperson Dora Pekec said, adding that Mamdani and the NYPD would look back at everything that happened over the prior 24 hours. How a police commissioner could actually push a federal agency out of New York remains an open question. Still, the standoff is the sharpest break yet between the mayor and the organization that powered his victory last year.

Belgal’s 5-year-old son was in the car with him when the agent opened fire, city officials and eyewitnesses said. By Friday, federal officials said, Belgal was locked up in Brooklyn, in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

DSA accuses the NYPD of helping ICE in Marble Hill

Chapter co-chair Grace Mausser pointed to social media video in which officers push bystanders out of the way as an unmarked car pulls off. She also faulted Tisch for going over Belgal’s criminal history at a press conference alongside the mayor on Thursday night. Sam Raskin, a spokesperson for Mamdani, backed the police response, saying the ICE convoy sped away from the hospital so fast that anyone in its path faced a serious risk of injury.

Richard Esposito, a former NYPD deputy commissioner who now analyzes policing, sees nothing unusual in officers opening a path for departing federal vehicles. “They would do that for anyone,” he said, arguing that letting the agents leave is safer than keeping them there.

The chapter’s complaints about Tisch go back months: crackdowns on low-level offenses, the gang database, and the Strategic Response Group, a protest unit that has faced lawsuits over aggressive tactics and that Mamdani pledged as a candidate to dismantle. NYPD spokesperson Brad Weekes said that unit did not respond to the Marble Hill protests on Thursday night. Mausser said the DSA has been patient with the mayor over the difficulty of running the city, but its patience with Tisch is thinning. “She’s had 10 months,” Mausser said.