NEW YORK — Friendly snowball fights, at times involving jovial police officers, have become a staple of living in big U.S. cities after a significant snowfall.
But here in New York, what started as a joyous occasion in Washington Square on Monday quickly morphed into a political tempest after residents began pelting city police officers with chunks of snow and ice.
After New York received nearly 20 inches of snow this week, viral videos showed several city police officers responding to the Greenwich Village park after a large snowball fight erupted. Dozens of people then began pelting several officers with snowballs, forcing them to retreat in search of shelter.
When additional officers arrived, the crowd also attacked them. One officer was filmed holding a chemical irritant to try to quell the crowd.
As many as four officers were taken to the hospital with face lacerations, according to the New York Police Department.
Within hours of the videos appearing on social media, the matter became an issue for Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), a democratic socialist who as a candidate had a strained relationship with local police unions. Police leaders called on the mayor to condemn the incident while Mamdani’s political opponents blamed him for creating a tone in New York that led to the disrespect of law enforcement.
“What we saw in Washington Square Park today was not harmless fun,” Scott Munro, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, said in a statement. “It was a deliberate, outrageous and dangerous attack on uniformed officers.”
In a statement Tuesday, Mamdani blamed the incident on “kids.”
“I’ve seen the videos of kids throwing snowballs at NYPD officers in Washington Square Park,” he posted on X. “Officers, like all city workers, have been out in a historic blizzard, keeping New Yorkers safe and cars moving. Treat them with respect. If anyone’s catching a snowball, it’s me.”
Statement from DEA President Scott Munro: “What we saw in Washington Square Park today was not harmless fun — it was a deliberate, outrageous, and dangerous attack on uniformed police officers. The Detectives’ Endowment Association is calling on Mayor Mamdani and District… pic.twitter.com/AGYSH9YXUs
— Detectives’ Endowment Association (@NYCPDDEA) February 24, 2026
Munro and other police union leaders called on Mamdani and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to investigate, arrest and prosecute those responsible for throwing the snowballs.
“No free pass. No get out of jail free card,” Munro said.
New York City Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch confirmed in a statement Monday night that criminal investigations are underway. Tisch said the “behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal.”
Several politicians, including former governor Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and many local Republicans, quickly tried to accuse Mamdani of being partially responsible for incident. They noted that before he became mayor, Mamdani had been quoted calling police officers “racist,” “wicked” and “corrupt.” Mamdani apologized for his past remarks.
“Words have consequences,” said Cuomo, who was Mamdani’s chief opponent in last year’s mayoral contest, in a social media post. “We are seeing that in growing disrespect for law enforcement. … Real leaders understand that. This mayor does not.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), in a post, used the incident to refer to Mamdani as a “defund-the-police, anti-law enforcement Socialist mayor.”
The criticisms highlight the difficulties Mamdani faces in leading the nation’s largest city during a time of heightened cultural and political divisions. Despite supporting police reform, Mamdani has moved to distance himself from the far left over matters involving policing.
In December, in one of his first major personnel decisions, Mamdani reappointed Tisch as police commissioner — a move that was widely praised by the business community and moderate politicians. And after two police-involved shootings last month, Mamdani also acknowledged the dangers officers face on the job.
Now, the snowball fight threatened to overshadow Mamdani’s efforts to help the city prepare for and manage the blizzard, during which he implemented the city’s first weather-related travel ban in years. Most of the city’s major streets were plowed within hours of the snow stopping on Monday, and public schools reopened Tuesday.
In Washington Square Park, which borders New York University, it remained unclear whether responding police officers could have done more to de-escalate the snowball fight. A police spokesman said officers had initially received a 911 call for a “disorderly group” in the park.
William Bratton, who served as New York’s police commissioner in the mid-1990s and again from 2014 to 2016, said in an interview that snowballs can become “very dangerous weapons.”
Still, Bratton called it “a stretch” for some political leaders to blame Mamdani for the incident, saying: “You can’t attribute that mob to him.” But, he added, the mayor should vow to hold those who threw the snowballs accountable.
“If you say nothing about it, that continues the concerns of those police officers who believe he has not been supportive of them,” Bratton said.
Over the past several decades, it’s become common in some big cities for large groups to meet in public parks during major snowstorms. At many of these gatherings, videos emerge of residents and police officers casually and joyously throwing snowballs at each other. But a few of these interactions have become heated.
During one snowstorm in Washington in December 2009, an off-duty detective was filmed pulling out his gun after a raucous crowd pelted his vehicle with snowballs. The detective was reprimanded and put on desk duty.
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