A New York police captain was transferred to a less prominent role on Tuesday, one day after a video began circulating that showed him, while on duty, calling Mayor Zohran Mamdani “expendable” and “an embarrassment and total nonsense.”
The captain, James G. Wilson, 51, was moved to the communications division from his position as the executive officer of the 94th Precinct, which covers the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, according to an internal police document and a police spokesman.
A disciplinary process has begun for Captain Wilson, whose comments violated the Police Department’s ban on expressing political opinions about a political party while on duty, a police spokesman said. A transfer to the communications division, the 911 call center in the Bronx, is a less visible post than executive officer, which is the second-highest ranking position in the precinct and deals frequently with the public.
The video, posted on Monday to the Instagram account @untilfreedom, was taken on Saturday night in Bushwick, Brooklyn, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the incident. It was near where 200 protesters had gathered outside a hospital to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from taking an immigrant who was a patient there. Many of the protesters clashed with the police, leading to eight arrests and accusations that the department was helping ICE. City law bars police officers from helping ICE conduct immigration enforcement.
“We had no prior awareness or coordination regarding the ICE operation that took place,” the police said in a statement on Sunday.
A spokesman for Mr. Mamdani declined to comment on the video.
The mayor, formerly a critic of the Police Department, has been careful not to anger the rank and file since taking office. During the mayoral campaign, he apologized for having called the department “racist, anti-queer and a major threat to public safety” in 2020, when he was running for assemblyman in Queens. But some union leaders questioned Mr. Mamdani’s sincerity.
In the video, Captain Wilson is one of many police officers and supervisors standing in the street near Wyckoff Heights Medical Center. The video opens with the captain saying, “He’s a temporary, he’s expendable, he’s temporary. Who’s Mamdani?” Someone off camera says, “He’s your boss.”
“Nah. He’s total nonsense,” Captain Wilson says. “He’s an embarrassment and total nonsense.”
A person off camera says, “Yo! You think your mayor is an embarrassment?”
“Not my mayor,” the captain replies, smiling slightly.
Later in the 40-second video he says, still smiling, “All Democrats, no, waste of human race.”
Officers are prohibited from endorsing or publicly expressing personal views “concerning the merits of any political party or candidate for public office,” according to the department’s administrative guide.
It was Captain Wilson’s comments about Democrats that led to the disciplinary process, according to the police.
The mayor’s decision to retain Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who worked for former Mayor Eric Adams, was seen in part as an attempt to allay some of police officers’ skepticism toward Mr. Mamdani and show he was serious about hiring administrators who don’t agree with him ideologically.
Mr. Mamdani has also been careful not to push for changes to the department that he once championed, like immediately disbanding the Strategic Response Group, a specialized unit charged with maintaining order during large-scale demonstrations, which had been accused of heavy-handed tactics during the George Floyd protests in 2020. He also said he was open to keeping the department’s criminal database, which collects and stores the names of thousands of people, many of them juveniles, whom the police suspect of being gang members.
But the mayor disagreed publicly with Commissioner Tisch in February when he said that people who pelted officers with snowballs during a snowball fight in Washington Square Park should not be prosecuted.
Last month, Mr. Mamdani told The New York Times that he had the final say in what happened at the Police Department and that he would overrule its commissioner if he felt it necessary.
Captain Wilson was accused in 2013 of abusing his authority when he was an officer working in the 76th Precinct, which covers South Brooklyn. He, another officer and a lieutenant pushed back a crowd of people who had started fighting with police officers in the street, according to a police report of the incident.
During the melee, he lost his shield. He, along with other officers, went to the apartment of the man the officers believed had taken the shield. Officer Wilson found the shield in a bedroom, but the Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiated a complaint that he and some of the other officers had entered the apartment illegally.
He was found not guilty after the case went to an internal department trial.
Jeff S. Adler, the assistant deputy commissioner of trials at the time, said Officer Wilson had gotten consent from the resident of the apartment to search for his shield.
During the trial, Officer Wilson said he was “ashamed” and “kind of like devastated by the whole incident.”
He was promoted to captain in 2021, according to police records.
Maria Cramer is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and crime in the city and surrounding areas.
The post N.Y.P.D. Captain Is Transferred After Calling Mamdani ‘Total Nonsense’ appeared first on New York Times.
