DSA ‘demands’ Mamdani fire NYPD boss Tisch as socialists attack mayor over ICE shooting

Democratic Socialists of America are calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fire Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch following a controversial shooting by ICE agents in the Bronx last week.

In a scathing online statement, the DSA called on its most prominent member to get rid of the city’s top cop and disband two elite NYPD units.

“We demand that Mayor Zohran Mamdani fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and use every power he has to drive ICE out of New York,” he said. “

They demanded that the city eliminate police strategic response teams and community response teams.

The left-wing organization cried foul after federal immigration agents surrounded suspected gangbanger Oscar Belgal in Marble Hill on Thursday and fired several shots at his car, wounding him in the neck as his 5-year-old son sat in the backseat.

Tisch said at a press briefing hours later that the New York Police Department was not involved in the operation, but reported that Belgal, a reputed member of the Trinitarios street gang, had a troubling criminal history that included robberies and rapes linked to drug distribution.

DSA congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier called on Tisch to resign the day after the shooting, accusing him of protecting a “militia” of armed ICE thugs.

Chevalier also said during an interview with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker that Belgal’s criminal record “doesn’t even matter,” and accused the New York Police Department of vilifying the Dominican immigrant.

Mamdani, appearing on MS Now on Sunday, was asked about Avila Chevalier’s comments but did not change course on whether he plans to keep her on the job, despite pledging to investigate the police response to the shooting and subsequent protests.

“The NYPD was not on scene when the incident occurred when ICE shot Mr. Belgal and his 5-year-old son in the car.”

New York police received a 911 call, arrived on the scene and took Belgal to a local hospital, he said.

“What I’m going to do with the police commissioner is a review of this entire period,” Mamdani said.

He said the Strategic Response Group was not involved in the incident or response at all, but still intended to disband it.

Mamdani told the New York Times on Friday that “there are no plans” to change the leadership of the NYPD.

“And I want to be very clear that our administration, alongside the commissioner and the PD, will review all events of the past 24 hours, including the ICE shooting, the Police Department’s response to that incident and the subsequent protest, the staging of ICE operations in private parking lots, and any steps the city can take to protect New Yorkers from the terror of ICE,” he told the Times.

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