Democratic Socialists are turning on New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and demanding he fire police Commissioner Jessica Tisch after ICE agents shot a reputed gang member in the Bronx, even as the mayor keeps his top cop.
The Democratic Socialists of America demanded Mayor Zohran Mamdani fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and abolish two elite police units after federal immigration agents wounded Oscar Belgal in Marble Hill last week.
ICE agents surrounded Belgal on Thursday and fired multiple shots into his car. The gunfire wounded him in the neck while his 5-year-old son sat in the back seat. NYPD officers later responded to a 911 call, arrived at the scene, and took Belgal to a local hospital.
Tisch told reporters hours later that the NYPD had no role in the ICE operation. She also noted Belgal’s criminal history, including robbery and drug distribution cases, and his reputation as a member of the Trinitarios street gang.
That record did not slow the left’s attack on the city’s top cop. DSA issued a scathing online statement calling for Tisch’s ouster and a full push against federal immigration enforcement in the city.
"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,"
The group also demanded the city abolish the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group and community response teams. Mamdani has already said he intends to disband the Strategic Response Group even though he stated it played no part in the incident or the response.
The day after the shooting, DSA congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier called for Tisch to resign. She accused the commissioner of protecting a “militia” of armed ICE personnel and claimed the NYPD was villainizing the Dominican immigrant.
During an interview with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, Chevalier waved away Belgal’s rap sheet. She said the criminal history “doesn’t even matter.”
That stance fits a broader pattern in which progressive allies of the mayor treat enforcement itself as the problem. Similar friction has surfaced when progressive allies of Mamdani staged high-profile street blockades.
Mamdani has refused to dump Tisch. On Friday he told the New York Times “there are no plans” to change NYPD leadership. He still promised a joint review with the commissioner of the full 24-hour window around the shooting.
"And I want to be very clear that our administration, alongside the commissioner, alongside the PD, will review all of the events of the last 24 hours, including ICE’s shooting, the Police Department’s response to that incident and the ensuing protest, the staging of ICE operations in privately owned parking lots, and every action the city can take to protect New Yorkers from ICE’s terror,"
On Sunday the mayor appeared on MS Now and repeated that the police department was not present when the shots were fired. He did not reverse course on keeping Tisch.
"The NYPD was not at the scene when the incident took place when the incident took place, when ICE shot at Mr. Belgal and his 5-year-old son in the car."
He added that he would conduct “a review of that entire 24 period” with the commissioner. The review covers the ICE action, the NYPD response, later protests, and ICE use of privately owned parking lots.
Mamdani’s decision to retain Tisch has not satisfied the socialist left that helped elevate him. The same activists who want ICE driven from New York City are now pressing him to gut specialized NYPD units that had nothing to do with the federal operation.
Tisch’s briefing underscored the gap. She made plain the department stayed out of the ICE action, yet the DSA still demanded her head and the abolition of response teams. Belgal’s reported gang ties and prior robbery and drug cases received far less weight from the activists than the fact of an immigration enforcement encounter.
New Yorkers have watched this dynamic before. Critics have already tied the mayor to rising disorder and inflammatory rhetoric, including in coverage of anti-Jewish hate crimes surging in the city.
The mayor’s own language framed ICE activity as “terror” while he simultaneously pledged to keep the police commissioner who publicly distanced the NYPD from the shooting. He also reconfirmed plans to disband the Strategic Response Group despite stating it was uninvolved.
That combination leaves frontline officers and lawful residents watching a familiar script: federal agents confront a reputed gang member with a documented criminal past, a child is present in the car, the local police department responds only after the fact to render aid, and the socialist base still demands the police commissioner’s firing and the dismantling of elite units.
The clash arrives as national voices already warn that Democrats are ceding ground to figures like Mamdani. Senator Ted Cruz has flagged the party’s shift toward the AOC-Mamdani lane.
Local flashpoints keep multiplying. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani previously urged Mamdani to stay away from a major commemorative event, and the mayor has drawn separate backlash over housing rhetoric that treated eviction as “violence.”
Each episode follows the same incentive structure. Activists treat criminal history as irrelevant, cast immigration enforcement as illegitimate, and demand the mayor weaken the very police leadership that had no operational role in the federal action. Mamdani’s review may examine parking-lot staging and protest response, yet he has already drawn a hard line against removing Tisch.
Chevalier’s insistence that Belgal’s record “doesn’t even matter” states the priority out loud. Public safety details, gang affiliations, and prior robbery or drug cases become secondary to the project of shrinking both ICE presence and specialized NYPD capacity.
Meanwhile the basic sequence remains straightforward. Federal agents moved on a suspected Trinitarios member in Marble Hill. Shots were fired into the vehicle. Belgal was hit in the neck. A five-year-old was in the back seat. NYPD arrived after 911, provided transport to a hospital, and the commissioner stated the department had stayed out of the operation. Hours and days later the socialist demand was still to fire her and abolish response teams.
Mamdani now sits between the police commissioner he refuses to remove and the activist base that wants her gone anyway. He has promised a sweeping review of the 24-hour period while repeating there are no plans to change NYPD leadership and while advancing his own intent to disband a unit he says was not involved.
Taxpayers and residents who expect police and federal agents to handle armed suspects and gang activity are left with the clearer picture: the left’s test for loyalty is how quickly a mayor will sacrifice the city’s top cop and specialized units after an ICE encounter, criminal record or not.
