A New York criminal justice activist said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is failing to stop “racist” policing in a recent interview with the Democratic Socialists of America.
The DSA-endorsed mayor is letting down fellow radicals by allowing local officers to arrest non-white people disproportionately, Police Reform Organizing Project director Robert Gangi said Sept. 24 in Democratic Left, the DSA’s official magazine. Gangi gave the interview to DSA member George De Stefano, whose New York City chapter helped Mamdani win his 2025 campaign with thousands of volunteers and voter outreach.
Gangi’s organization calls for defunding the police and eliminating multiple arresting practices, while the DSA openly supports abolishing police and prisons. Gangi’s largely unnoticed interview shows both groups facing the tension of getting their hopes up for a mayor pressured to lead the nation’s largest local police agency.
“He’s prioritizing some of the key issues that he campaigned on, which are much more broadly politically acceptable and doable,” Gangi told the DSA. “He’s freezing the rent. He’s taking steps to provide fast and free buses and city-owned grocery stores, which are designed to reduce the cost of living for people. These are all good things.”
“The point we’re making is that Mamdani’s goal to create an inclusive, equal, and safe city for all citizens is significantly undermined by his refusal to change police practices,” Gangi continued. “You can’t have an inclusive and diverse city when every day your police department engages in racist practices targeting a certain population — primarily low-income people of color, Black and Latino people.”
Mamdani’s office did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment. He called police racist and “anti-queer” earlier in his political career but has since apologized for such comments and taken steps to build trust with New York Police Department officers.
However, the self-described socialist mayor faced more pressure from the NYPD’s critics in June after proposing to grow the agency’s headcount.
“This runs counter to the values of the socialist and working-class movement that elected him,” the DSA’s New York City chapter said at the time.
Mamdani later scrapped the plan, Spectrum News reported.
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Gangi also told Democratic Left that Mamdani is failing by allowing pro-incarceration NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, an appointee of former Mayor Eric Adams, to keep her job.
“Mamdani, to our disappointment, and I think the disappointment of others who care about racist and abusive police practices, has basically kept his hands in his pockets and has stood on the sidelines,” Gangi told the DSA. “To continue the football analogy, Jessica Tisch performs as the head coach, calling all the plays.”