If this city was like it used to be, like it’s supposed to be, then the fracas that erupted in Washington Square Park last week would have been nothing more than the simple snowball fight that Mayor Mamdani said it was.
But it wasn’t.
Because if what happened in Washington Square Park had been a simple snowball fight like Mamdani said it was, then the police officers who were being pelted with snow and ice would have been tossing snowballs back, and having fun.
But they weren’t.
“This was not just a ‘snowball fight,’” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said in a statement. “This was an assault — by adults throwing chunks of ice and rocks — that landed two police officers in the hospital with head and face injuries.”
Police arrested one of four snowball bandits caught on camera clobbering the cops with snow.
Even if Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg refused to charge him with anything more than a misdemeanor, New Yorkers were justified in their outrage over yet another attack on the city’s so-called Finest.
Critics were also right to shovel scorn upon Mamdani for making light of the incident.
“From the videos that I’ve seen, it looked like kids at a snowball fight,” he said on social media.
Except that the perpetrators hurling the frozen projectiles looked hardly like any kids.
In fact, the man arrested, Gusmane Coulibaly, is 27. The three others sought by police are described as being around 18 to 20 years old.
The incident was just as ugly as one in 2019, when cops were doused with water in the middle of a heatwave while trying to make an arrest. One cop was even hit in the head with a bucket.
Equally ugly was an attack on cops near a Times Square migrant shelter in 2024. The police officers pummeled that day were trying to make a lawful arrest.
In the latest instance, the snowball fight could have been handled better on both sides. This would have been a much nicer story if the cops had been in on it to start, instead of storming in to try to break things up when the gathering got out of hand.
The same way we see cops dancing at the West Indian Day Parade, how endearing would it have been to see cops joining in the fun, tossing a few harmless snowballs at Washington Square Park, and taking a few in return?
It’s called community policing. Done right, it can go a long way.
But instead of throwing snowballs with the cops, the unruly mob began throwing them at the cops. The police, meanwhile, showed admirable restraint.
“I want to be very clear,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch wrote on social media the day of the fight. “The behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal.”
February is mercifully over. The month and the one before it brought with them at least 20 deaths related to the snow and bitter cold, all on Mamdani’s watch.
Spring is just around the corner, and no one could be happier about that than the unlikely mayor of New York City.
Mamdani, only two months into the job, has promised big things for the Big Apple. He probably didn’t count on distractions like trash collection and snowball fights.
But any mayor could have told him. It comes with the job.
