New York — New York City police are investigating after officers were pelted with snowballs while responding to a massive snowball fight in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park, as… The winter storm blanketed the northeast In the snow.
A video of the fight shows two uniformed officers walking down a walkway in the park on Monday as snowballs fly at them from all directions, hitting the officers and covering them in snow.
The officers, clearly frustrated, pushed at least two people to the ground while snowballs continued to fall. At one point, someone runs after an officer and puts some ice on his head. One of the officers can be seen rubbing his eye at the end of the video.
The New York Police Department said in a statement on Tuesday that several uniformed officers were hit in the face by snowballs and were “transported by emergency services in stable condition” to a nearby hospital, but did not release additional information about their injuries. No arrests have been made.
Jessica Tisch, the city’s police commissioner, called the behavior “disgraceful” and “criminal” and said the department was investigating the matter.
Many political figures in the city were quick to condemn the incident, with many critics of New York Mayor Zahran Mamdani seizing on the incident as evidence of declining respect for law enforcement under the new mayor, who faced attacks during his election campaign. On criticism He took the oath in 2020. Mamdani has He retracted those past statements.
“Officers, like all city workers, were out in a historic snowstorm, keeping New Yorkers safe and cars moving. Treat them with respect. If anyone’s catching a snowball, it’s me,” Mamdani wrote in an X post on Tuesday.