Mayor Mamdani Tuesday rejected calls from his political base to fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch after federal immigration agents shot a man in the neck last week, injuring him.
“Tisch is the police commissioner. I have no plans to change that,” Mamdani said in Queens Tuesday morning, his first media availability since Thursday night.
Mamdani went on to praise Tisch’s record, touting her work “uprooting corruption from the upper echelons of the NYPD” as well as overseeing a drop in murders and shootings across the city.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot an undocumented immigrant, Oscar Belgal, in his car as his 5-year-old son sat in the back seat. Belgal is currently in federal custody. He still has a bullet lodged in his neck and is in urgent need of surgery, his lawyers said Monday.
While the NYPD was not involved in the operation or shooting, officers, the department did respond to protests in the aftermath. Videos of social media shows NYPD officers and protesters involved in physical confrontations, dueign which Democratic Congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier was pushed to the ground.
Barry Williams / New York Daily News
Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a press conference after ICE agents shot and wounded a man on Marble Hill Ave. near W. 225th St. on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026 in the Bronx. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch is pictured at far right. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Apart from the shooting, some of Mamdani’s allies are showing increasing frustration around the issue of policing. Mamdani ran on a platform that including transformative changes to public safety — but those changes have largely not materialized, 10 months into his tenure.
Mamdani has largely deferred to Tisch on matters of policy and implementation, with a number of key operational element still in place.
Mamdani pledged to disband a controversial NYPD unit, the Strategic Response Group, end the use of the gang database and implement a Department of Community Safety, which is currently operating as an office. The number of summonses for low-level offenses, including criminal summonses, has risen during his tenure.
On Monday, Mamdani announced a slate of changes aimed at improving police accountability, as well as a sweeping review of the department’s use of force policies.
The Democratic Socialists of America, a national organization, called for Mamdani to give Tisch the boot on Saturday.
“We demand that Mayor Zohran Mamdani fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and use every power available to him to drive ICE out of New York City,” DSA said in a statement.
And the local New York City chapter of DSA, which Mamdani has called his “political home,” pressured him to fire Tisch if she couldn’t get federal immigration agents out of the city.
“ICE is a terrorist agency that must be expelled from New York City and abolished,” NYC-DSA said in a statement. “Jessica Tisch must get ICE out of New York and end NYPD complicity with these terrorists. If the commissioner can’t put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired.”
ICE is a federal agency that does not require permission from the NYPD or the mayor to operate in the city.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, a close ally of the mayor, directly called for Tisch to leave her post: “The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group must be disbanded as quickly as possible, and Commissioner Tisch must step down,” she said in a statement on Friday.
Mamdani also on Tuesday attended annual Police Memorial Wall unveiling in Battery Park City, where he called it a “a solemn privilege” to appear alongside Tisch and other NYPD leadership.