Man arrested for 'assaulting' cops in snowball incident amid rift between Mayor Zohran Mamdani, NYPD
A man was arrested after a viral incident between New Yorkers and NYPD officers during Monday's blizzard, which has snowballed into Mayor Zohran Mamdani's first test with the police brass after he appeared to downplay the issue.
Gusmane Coulibaly, 27, was arrested for "assaulting" police officers earlier this week in Washington Square Park, the New York City Police Department announced Thursday.
"Coulibaly was previously arrested less than three weeks ago for an attempted robbery in the transit system," according to the NYPD.
Coulibaly pleaded not guilty Thursday to misdemeanor harassment and obstruction charges. He was released following a brief arraignment.
With Mamdani capturing attention on the national stage, the progressive mayor is threading the needle carefully to avoid repeating the mistakes some of his predecessors made to ensure he doesn't lose that critical police support, according to a political expert.
Mamdani came under fire on Tuesday after the president of the Police Benevolent Association -- the union representing NYPD officers -- accused the mayor of downplaying the severity of an incident. The NYPD said people playing in the snow on Monday in Manhattan were "attacking" officers with snowballs.
"I've seen the videos of this snowball fight. I think that it was a snowball fight," the mayor said during a news conference when asked repeatedly if anyone should be charged for the incident.
Mamdani echoed his sentiment on Wednesday at another news conference.
"What I saw was a snowball fight that got out of hand and it should be treated accordingly," he said.
The incident took place Monday afternoon in Washington Square Park when police were called in about parkgoers playing aggressively, according to the NYPD.
Parkgoer Rahul Nag told WABC 7 that it started off as harmless fun but escalated when several young people began tossing snow from the roof of the park's restrooms. The officers were confronted after they arrived to investigate.
"It wasn't supposed to be violent. It started out as a very fun thing to do, and then, you know, it just escalated, and there weren't any older kids or older people out here," he told the station.
"It was just young kids having fun. And then it kind of became a back-and-forth thing between NYPD and those young kids," Nag added.
Police say the crowd began throwing snowballs at them and continued to pelt them and their vehicles with snowballs as they left the park. The mayor and NYPD said two officers were treated for minor injuries, including lacerations.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in an X post Tuesday night that the incident was being investigated. The NYPD also released images of the people who allegedly threw the snowballs at the officers.
"The NYPD is aware of certain videos taken earlier today in Washington Square Park showing individuals attacking cops. I want to be very clear: The behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal," Tisch said in her post.
No arrests had been made as of Wednesday afternoon.
Although Mamdani did not describe the incident as an attack, he repeatedly has condemned anyone who would antagonize the police, and praised their work during the snowstorms over the last two months.
"I want to say that officers have been on the front line of helping our city respond to this blizzard. They have been keeping New Yorkers safe, and they have also been at the heart of our efforts of digging New Yorkers’ cars out of these kinds of conditions and ensuring that our ambulances, our MTA buses can keep functioning across this city" he told reporters during the Tuesday news conference.
"They and our entire city workforce deserve to be treated with respect. The only person in our city's workforce who deserves to be treated with a snowball is me," Mamdani added.
The mayor's remarks, however, did not sit well with the leaders of the Police Benevolent Association. The union's president, Patrick Hendry, released a statement Tuesday calling the mayor's response "a complete failure of leadership."
"This was disgraceful. It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a game. It was a vicious attack," he said.
Mamdani told reporters Wednesday that he and Tisch are in constant communication but declined to talk more about the investigation into the incident.
Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University, told ABC News it was inevitable that Mamdani and the police brass would butt heads, given the mayor's past criticism of the NYPD and the pushback by Republicans across the country against him and his progressive policies.
"Mamdani is cognizant of that and trying to balance what some people felt was pretty innocuous and the NYPD saw it as a different way," she said. "He's also cognizant that there are groups that, frankly, do not want him to succeed."
Greer noted that Mamdani is taking hard lessons from previous Democratic mayors, especially Bill de Blasio and David Dinkins, who had extremely strained relationships with the NYPD.
Greer said that De Blasio's relationship with the police seemed to crystalize in 2014 when officers turned their back to him during the funeral for two slain officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. That came weeks after protests broke out over the death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died after he was put in a chokehold during an arrest.
"You never want to be in a position where the NYPD turns their back to you and you never regain their trust," she said.
Greer noted that even though he is extremely early in his tenure, Mamdani has taken smart first steps to show not just the NYPD but also his critics that he cares about his officers. Those moves include apologizing for his previous criticisms and retaining Tisch as his commissioner after his predecessor Eric Adams' term ended.
Even in his response to the snowball incident, where the mayor repeatedly said that snowballs should be thrown at him, indicated a sense of humility, according to Greer. She said Mamdani is willing to take on New Yorkers' frustrations, especially over the weather.
"It's putting the onus on him," she said. "I think it's brilliant because it says I'm the one in charge. The NYPD is not in charge, it's me. It's hard for people to wrap their heads around, but that's the truth and a brilliant way to articulate a very real fact."
Greer said the snowball incident is unlikely to hamper Mamdani's status or alter his overall "report card" on the local or national level, given fast-paced nature of the city's politics.
However, she said that the mayor will need to continue to thread the needle with the NYPD for his entire tenure in City Hall, as he is seen as the star figure in the Democratic progressive movement.
"The question behind all of this, really, is can he keep the city safe? That's not fair to make this situation a real assessment when we're talking about snowballs and not bullets," Greer said.
