An NYPD officer’s death tested what Zohran Mamdani truly believes about the police
Story by Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN • 2h
As Zohran Mamdani was asleep on another continent, his top campaign aides wrangled over how he should sound in his statement about an off-duty police officer who had just been shot and killed in Midtown Manhattan along with three other people.
Drafts went back and forth as the news dribbled in, people familiar with and involved in the conversations that night tell CNN about the previously unreported moment. Lines were suggested, pushed back on, tweaked.
This was a tragic moment with a lot of eyes on a measured response, some on the campaign were saying. Not at the expense of their values, others responded. Their candidate had already been navigating how to explain years of speeches, statements and social media posts calling for defunding the police or abolishing them entirely.
Tempers flared. At one point, as the hours ticked by while Mamdani’s small inner circle debated what to say and whether to call the candidate and wake him up, some aides panicked that they weren’t taking the situation seriously enough. A few outside the inner circle even started spit-balling ideas like having someone enlist former Mayor Bill de Blasio to call Mamdani.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/an-nypd-officer-s-death-tested-what-zohran-mamdani-truly-believes-about-the-police/ar-AA1NsrDb?ocid=widgetonlockscreen&cvid=68d9378da5484d238027da16f7bdc261&ei=10
