A video of New Yorkers pelting police with snowballs on Monday was not all in good fun. Several NYPD officers were injured responding to a large, organized snowball fight in Washington Square Park.
New Yorkers spent all day drilling police officers with snowballs..
New York Detectives Endowment Association President Scott Munro said the viral video was not harmless fun:
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 Attorney Bragg to ensure every individual responsible for this illegal behavior is prosecuted. No free pass. No get out of jail free card.
Make no mistake: detectives will do what they always do. They will identify those involved and they will apprehend them.
Our men and women in blue deserve to be safe. They deserve to be protected. And they deserve to be respected.
They earn it every single day.”
Even NYC Mayor Mamdani said, “treat them with respect.”
I’ve seen the videos of kids throwing snowballs at NYPD officers in Washington Square Park.
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.
Police tracking a shooting suspect in the Bronx on Feb. 10.
Photo by Dean Moses
Gun violence has exploded in the Bronx in February, leaving a number of people dead — and prompting the NYPD to deploy additional resources to the borough ahead of a major reorganization set to take place this spring.
According to police sources, the Bronx has had an increase of nine shootings this month as of Feb. 15, compared to the same time last year. One of these shootings included the slaying of 16-year-old up-and-coming football star Christopher Redding. A 17-year-old gunman was cuffed and charged with his murder over the weekend.
“Christopher was defending his friends who were being targeted by a group of individuals who then opened fire on them in the Bronx. His last act on earth was one of courage and selflessness, protecting those he cared about. The loss of Christopher has deeply affected his family, his teammates, and the entire community,” Christopher Lopez, the boy’s former coach, wrote a GoFundMe set up in his honor.
One day before Redding was tragically gunned down, 41-year-old Adrian Dawodu was fatally shot on the 170 Street Station platform on the afternoon of Feb. 10 during a violent brawl caught on viral video. His alleged killer, 27-year-old Alberto Frias, remains on the lam after begging for aid from his girlfriend.
“We have him on video running back to the apartment. He’s very frantic. He meets up with his girlfriend and another family member, asking them to get him an Uber,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. “They order him a Lyft. But, actually, while he changes his clothing, he drops the shell case he must have had in his clothing. He leaves the shell casing at the scene, inside of his apartment, in his bedroom.”
An officer at the scene of a shooting at the 170th Street B/D subway station. Photo by Dean Moses
According to NYPD data, shootings in the Bronx were already on the rise as of Feb. 8 by 26.3%, before last week’s deadly spate.
When reached for comment, an NYPD spokesperson told amNewYork that police have deployed additional resources to the Bronx, but cautioned that the year is still young, and it is too early to suggest a broader, upward trend in gun violence.
“Six weeks of data is a statistically short time frame to allege any type of broad trend. We are in the infancy of 2026 and to use this short timeframe of crime data would not be statistically accurate,” an NYPD spokesperson said.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch previously admitted that the Bronx has steadily led the way in crime more than any other borough. During her State of the NYPD address last week, she revealed she will be splitting into two police sections, allowing her to flood the area with more cops.
“For too long, the Bronx has experienced more crime per capita than any other borough while operating under a structure that hasn’t kept pace with the demands placed on it,” Tisch stated. “Just look at the numbers. Last year, the Bronx accounted for more than one-third of all shooting incidents and shooting victims citywide – roughly three times Queens and Manhattan. The borough recorded more major crime than Manhattan and Queens, and nearly as much as Brooklyn. And Bronx residents generated nearly one million calls for service last year – more than Queens and nearly equal to Manhattan.”
New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch at the State of the NYPD address on Feb. 10.Photo by Dean Moses
Police in Brooklyn have apprehended a suspect who attacked two women at the 53rd Street station on the R line Saturday morning — punching one victim while shoving another onto the tracks.
Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit
Police in Brooklyn have apprehended a suspect who attacked two women at a subway station Saturday morning — punching one victim while shoving another onto the tracks.
Law enforcement sources said the rampage occurred just before 8:45 a.m. on Feb. 14 at the 53rd Street station on the R line in Sunset Park.
Sources familiar with the case said the suspect, a 25-year-old man, approached one of the victims, a 51-year-old woman, and punched her in the face.
The perpetrator then turned his attention to the second victim, a 43-year-old woman, and shoved her onto the tracks. Following the attacks, he fled out of the station to the street above.
The 43-year-old woman was able to get off the tracks before a train could arrive, according to reports on the Citizen app.
Officers from the 72nd Precinct and NYPD Transit District 34 responded to the scene. The first victim suffered facial injuries, while the 43-year-old woman sustained pain in her knee and back.
During a search, police apprehended the suspect at a shelter on the 5100 block of 20th Avenue in Brooklyn. He was taken into custody for questioning, with charges against him pending the results of the ongoing investigation.
Six weeks into his tenure, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been confronted with controversies both grave and frivolous. He wisely stood by a top appointee who was facing down a media circus for tweets that were more than a half-decade old. He grappled with the fallout from several police-involved shootings and navigated how, as a democratic socialist who must partner with a much more conservative NYPD commissioner, he should respond.
And he faced down, like just about every mayor before him, the weather. The results were mixed. They offered both encouraging signs for a 34-year-old politician who is going to endure more scrutiny than all of his recent predecessors and warnings for an administration that promised sweeping change but still finds itself struggling with the balky machinery of government. With such high expectations placed upon him, it might grow more difficult for Mamdani to survive, unscathed, crises like the 19 New Yorkers who died outside during a historic cold snap. (An additional seven city residents died in their own homes.)
Before a large snowstorm barreled into New York City at the end of January, the great political question for Mamdani was how quickly his Sanitation Department could get the roadways clear and how well he could communicate the meteorological threat. On that front, Mamdani was plainly successful. He was on television and social media constantly, and he projected the energy and verve he was known for on the campaign trail. This was nothing like Michael Bloomberg ducking a snowstorm for Bermuda or John Lindsay, more than a half-century ago, failing to anticipate a massive snowfall that would kill 42 New Yorkers and paralyze the outer boroughs. Mamdani didn’t even have to beat back criticism that certain neighborhoods were wholly neglected, like de Blasio with the Upper East Side in 2014.
Had the weather been merely seasonal after the snow fell, Mamdani would have received his kudos and skipped along to February. Instead, New York and much of the Northeast endured the most brutal cold in decades. For nine consecutive days, the temperature didn’t climb above freezing. Though this did not technically break a record — in 2018, New York temperatures remained at or below freezing for 14 consecutive days — the lows were in the single digits with horrifying windchill. Large portions of the city waterways iced over completely.
To an extent, the obvious challenge of the cold has insulated Mamdani from greater backlash. The New York Post has hammered him repeatedly, and Julie Menin, the Speaker of the City Council and a possible future mayoral candidate, recently said the New Yorkers who died from the cold “should be alive today,” but there isn’t much evidence — yet — that Mamdani is paying a tremendous political price for the climbing death toll. The Post has tried to blame the cold deaths on Mamdani’s decision to end the sweeps of homeless encampments, but there’s scant evidence most of the New Yorkers who died outside were living in any of these camps. What is helping Mamdani is that two of the city officials who were charged with overseeing the response to the cold snap were Eric Adams holdovers who are about to leave the new administration. Both Molly Wasow Park, the commissioner of the Department of Social Services, and Zach Iscol, the city’s emergency management commissioner, are set to resign, making way for Mamdani’s own appointees.
What could have been done differently? A clear answer hasn’t yet emerged. At a recent City Council hearing, Park said the outdoor deaths fall outside historical norms; in a typical year, an average of ten to 20 homeless people die in the city from hypothermia. It’s actually not known exactly how many of the 19 people who died were homeless. (At least a quarter may have had permanent housing.) Questions have emerged over whether the city was forceful enough when it came to removing people, even against their will, from the streets as the deadly cold descended. The police testified that they have made, since January 19, at least 52 involuntary removals. The city hasn’t revealed how many people have been left on the streets after an interaction with a clinician or police officer instead of being involuntarily committed.
It does appear, at the very minimum, the Mamdani administration was caught somewhat flatfooted. Warming buses were introduced but signage was initially missing. One city councilman said the 311 call he made for a distressed homeless person was never returned. Mamdani said, in the future, he might encourage more New Yorkers in such a situation to call 911 instead of 311. “New Yorkers have been told to cast blame in different places, but I am the mayor,” Mamdani said last week.
At least one administration spokesperson, though, attempted to deflect blame entirely, contra Mamdani. When the Post pressed City Hall for more information about the New Yorkers who had died of the cold indoors, Dora Pekec, the Mamdani spokesperson, said they wouldn’t be releasing additional information because they did not die on city property. “People die in their homes all the time,” Pekec said, which is, if technically true, also callous.
We do not know if other mayors — Bloomberg, de Blasio, Adams, or anyone else — would have handled the response to the cold differently. It’s hard, still, to discern how much of the death was inevitable and how much a result of sclerotic city systems Mamdani has yet to overhaul, letting down the most vulnerable New Yorkers. As a new mayor, Mamdani can claim, credibly, he is still grappling with inefficiencies created by Adams and others. New Yorkers will offer him leeway. How long that leeway lasts is one of the operative questions of his administration.
Mamdani stormed into City Hall like no other mayor before him on a wave of unprecedented voter enthusiasm and global celebrity. The stakes are dramatically raised. He has promised a new era for the city, and he’s now tasked with delivering it. What will be most damaging to his project is disillusionment and cynicism. If it seems like the city still doesn’t work as it should — or like the problems of past administrations, now matter how daunting, aren’t being addressed — the bloom might come off the Mamdani rose.
Human remains were discovered in the basement of a Brooklyn NYCHA complex on Sunday morning, authorities say.
According to police sources, workers inside the 330 Bushwick Ave. made the grim discovery at around 9:38 a.m. on Feb. 1. The workers told police they found “body parts” inside the garbage area by a trash chute.
Upon arrival, cops from the Police Service Area 3 and 90th Precinct found the body of a woman. She was pronounced dead at the scene. While she has not yet been identified, she is believed to be between 50 and 60 years old.
The Chief Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death.
No arrests have been made, and the investigation remains ongoing.
A former NYPD officer on Thursday pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his involvement in a drug trafficking scheme while serving on the force.
Andrew Nguyen, 42, was charged with bribery, narcotics trafficking conspiracy, using a firearm to further drug trafficking, fraud and robbery last fall. According to his eight-count indictment, the ex-cop took more than $30,000 in exchange for transporting drugs, including approximately eight kilograms of cocaine; providing unauthorized armed protection for a drug trafficking enterprise; and submitting false reports to the NYPD to help a co-conspirator avoid repayment of a drug-trafficking-related debt.
Nguyen entered a guilty plea to three of the indictment’s eight counts — bribery and narcotics distribution conspiracy, and a firearm charge — before U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres Thursday.
He told Torres that he abused his position and access as an NYPD officer to support and protect people trafficking drugs in The Bronx and Manhattan between 2020 and 2023, including using an unsanctioned police vehicle to conduct an unsanctioned car stop to support the scheme.
“I knew what I was doing was wrong,” Nguyen, who was primarily stationed at Bronx Transit District 12, told the court. “I am deeply sorry.”
Family members of Nguyen filled the first two rows of the courtroom with tears in their eyes, passing tissues between each other throughout the proceedings. Nguyen’s attorney, Martin Bell of the firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, explained what would happen during the plea hearing and what the next steps would be before the proceeding to his relatives in the courtroom.
Nguyen will be sentenced on June 22. The maximum sentence for the crimes Nguyen pleaded guilty to is life in prison. The minimum required sentence is five years.
His plea deal, which his attorney and prosecutors, U.S. Attorneys Jonathan Rebold and Matthew King agreed to, includes a recommended sentence of 12.25 years to 14 years, though the judge is not bound to that recommendation.
Beyond the crimes Nguyen pleaded guilty to, charging papers allege wire fraud, robbery and an attempt to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute it. They also charge he considered, but ultimately decided against, carrying out a string of other actions to support the drug trafficking scheme and traffickers — including kidnapping drug dealers who owed money to a man he was conspiring with.
Nguyen was arrested on Nov. 4, 2025, and was released on a $400,000 bond on Nov. 12, 2025.
He was fired from the NYPD in December 2023 for an unrelated incident: stealing a pair of children’s Nikes that a coworker placed in his precinct’s property room.
After being kicked off the force, Nguyen worked as a public bus driver in Westchester, a job he lost during the course of the court proceedings. Since then, he has been working in the delivery industry.
Nguyen will be held in custody until he is sentenced.
The NYPD is searching for an unidentified perpetrator who landed a 37-year-old subway conductor in the hospital after punching him in the face aboard a Queens A train early Thursday morning.
Cops say that around 1:33 a.m. on Jan. 15, officers from the 101st Precinct and Transit District 23 responded to a 911 call reporting an assault on the conductor. The incident occurred while a Manhattan-bound A train was pulling into the Beach 25th Street station in Far Rockaway.
According to police, the victim reported being approached by the unidentified perpetrator, who then punched him in the face, causing him to hit his head on the train cabin wall.
EMS personnel rushed the victim to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital, where he was in stable condition.
Police are still searching for the perpetrator, who they only described as wearing a black coat. They have yet to make an arrest and continue to investigate.
The MTA did not immediately offer comment on the incident. Ellen Moynihan, a spokesperson for the Transport Workers Union Local 100, stated that they are investigating the incident.
The NYPD classifies the infraction as a felony assault, a crime category that is up 112.5% in the 101st Precinct through Jan. 11 compared to the same period last year. There have been 17 felony assaults in the precinct so far this year.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
Police vehicles parked outside NewYork–Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital on Thursday after an officer shot a man wielding a sharp object inside. Photo: David Caruso/AP Photo
NYPD officers in Brooklyn and Manhattan shot and killed weapon-wielding suspects in two separate incidents on Thursday, a rare occurrence in a city that saw a total of 14 fatal shootings by police all of last year.
In his first public comments on the incidents, Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the pair of shootings “devastating to all New Yorkers.”
“I know many are eager for answers. The NYPD is conducting an internal investigation — I will work with Commissioner Tisch to ensure this is as thorough and swift as possible,” Mamdani wrote on social media Friday. “These tragedies are painful, whether they take place steps from our home or miles away. They are a reminder of the immense work that must be done to deliver genuine public safety — work Commissioner Tisch and I are undertaking together every day.”
In Brooklyn, police officials said that the department received multiple 911 calls shortly before 5:30 p.m. concerning a “violent male armed with a knife” at Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.
“The calls stated that he had barricaded himself inside a room with other people and had cut himself and was trying to cut other people. According to hospital staff, the subject had also threatened to kill them,” Assistant Chief Charles Minch said at a briefing Thursday evening.
Per the official police account, officers arrived at the eighth floor of the hospital, where they saw blood on the walls, floor, and on the outside of the door where the man was located along with an elderly patient and a member of the hospital security staff who were trapped inside the room with him. Minch said the man displayed the bloody weapon and refused multiple orders from the officers to drop it, beginning a seven-minute standoff in which the suspect attempted to forcibly close the door as law enforcement tried to keep it open. As the suspect advanced, officers fired a firearm and a Taser simultaneously, with the stun gun failing to subdue the suspect. According to Minch, the suspect advanced again and officers once again deployed their Tasers, which were, once again, ineffective. The officers then opened fire with their firearms, striking the suspect who was soon pronounced dead.
“This situation could’ve turned out very differently,” Minch said.
Though authorities had not yet identified the source of the weapon at the time of the briefing, the Daily News has since reported that the weapon was believed to be a shard from a broken toilet seat, according to sources. The suspect was later revealed to have been a patient at the hospital who was admitted Wednesday.
At a briefing in the West Village, Assistant Chief James McCarthy said that officers were flagged down at 10:53 p.m. around Bedford and Sixth Avenues by two people who said they were involved in a crash with a car that was attempting to flee the scene. When officers arrived, a 37-year-old man exited a BMW, drawing what appeared to be a gun and pointing it at the officers. The officers then opened fire, striking the suspect. He was transported to a nearby hospital where he was later pronounced dead. “The suspect maintained possession of the firearm while officers repeatedly gave commands for him to drop the weapon,” McCarthy said.
Police later retrieved what was deemed to be a fake gun from the scene, sharing a picture of the weapon on social media. The incident was captured on bodycam footage and is currently being investigated by the Force Investigation Division.
Many noted that the mayor waited until Friday morning to address the two shootings from Thursday evening. At an unrelated press conference, Mamdani said though he had been briefed on the incidents late last night, he wanted to exercise caution with his comments. “I take it very seriously, the language that I use. And I think that in a situation such as this, you have to be very intentional in what you share,” he said.
A use-of-force report issued by the NYPD in late December noted an increase of reportable force usages, recording 11,746 incidents in 2024 compared to 9,777 in 2023. 2024 also saw an increase in firearm discharges, with 28 intentional discharges and 14 fatal injuries.
In the February/March 2026 issue of Reason, we explore Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s policy goals and what they mean for New York City. Click here to read the other entries.
Central to Zohran Mamdani’s 2020 campaign for New York State Assembly was a pitch to radically constrain law enforcement. “Queer liberation means defund the police,” he posted two days after securing his seat representing Astoria, an apt coda to that election season.
It was November 2020, just months after the George Floyd protests began—a time when calls to defund the police were more common. Such a plan was arguably always a tougher sell in a mayoral campaign where candidates have to court a more politically diverse electorate than the one in western Queens, a district that overlaps with that of the socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.).
Which helps explain why Mamdani pivoted fairly dramatically on criminal justice in his run to be mayor of America’s most populous city. “I am not defunding the police,” he said on the campaign trail. “I am not running to defund the police.” One way he has tried to show he is serious about that promise: asking Jessica Tisch, who was an ally of Mayor Eric Adams, to stay on as New York City police commissioner.
That type of law enforcement partnership would have been difficult to imagine with the Mamdani who made his political debut just over five years ago. What might their differences mean for New York City?
On one hand, not much. A great deal has been made, for example, of Mamdani and Tisch diverging considerably on New York’s state bail law, which bars judges from contemplating a defendant’s dangerousness when making decisions about bond. It is the only state with that ban. While Tisch’s skepticism of that policy has merit—nearby New Jersey successfully eliminated cash bail in 2017 but did so in favor of a risk-based system—neither she nor Mamdani has the power to alter the legislation.
The same goes for their disagreements on New York’s Raise the Age law, which diverted most 16- and 17-year-old alleged offenders out of adult court. Mamdani likes the law; Tisch is against it. That debate is important, but it ultimately rests with state legislators.
Other differences are more consequential, or at least have potential to be. Currently, the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) can recommend disciplinary action after investigating allegations of misconduct at the New York Police Department (NYPD). The final say, however, belongs to the commissioner—something Mamdani campaigned on revoking.
The dispute over where that power should reside reached a fever pitch this summer, right in the heat of the New York mayoral campaign, when Tisch rejected a CCRB finding that an officer should be fired in connection with a fatal 2019 shooting. In that case, Lt. Jonathan Rivera inserted himself into a vehicle as a suspect, Allan Feliz, attempted to drive away from a traffic stop. When the car sped forward, Rivera shot Feliz in the chest.
At trial, a judge did not buy Rivera’s testimony that he feared Feliz was poised to run over his colleague, Officer Edward Barrett. Tisch instead cited a report from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who wrote that Rivera had “a reasonable perception—or at least not an obviously unreasonable one” that deadly force was justified. (James declined to prosecute Rivera in criminal court.)
Whatever you think of Tisch’s decision, her record on law enforcement misconduct may surprise those whose impression was formed solely by the headlines about Rivera. “Not only has Tisch signaled a greater willingness to discipline officers more frequently” than her predecessors, reportedGothamist last year, but “she’s also imposing tougher penalties.” And despite Mamdani’s campaign emphasis on depriving the commissioner of veto power over officer discipline, he praised Tisch’s efforts to “root out corruption” as something that united the two.
They are decidedly not united on how many NYPD officers there should be and, in some sense, on what they should be doing. Tisch expressed support for Adams’ plan to add 5,000 officers to the force, which has decreased in recent years, whereas Mamdani wants to keep the current head count.
Perhaps more notable are their differing enforcement priorities. A hallmark of Tisch’s tenure has been her focus on low-level offenses—including open drug use, prostitution, and fare evasion—to crack down on public disorder. “When neighborhoods are plagued by issues such as aggressive panhandling, unruly street vending, public urination, abandoned vehicles, it gives the impression of an unsafe community,” she said in January 2025. The NYPD has credited that strategy, often referred to as broken windows policing, with the city’s recent crime decline.
Mamdani also prefers a prevention-oriented approach, but it bears no resemblance to Tisch’s. He has said that police officers should be free to target major crimes. To accomplish that, he campaigned on creating a Department of Community Safety, with a budget over $1 billion, that would seek to address poverty and inequality; it would also divert lower-level calls to mental health specialists and social workers. While focusing police resources on serious offenses is an appealing idea, it’s worth noting that New York City already has a hefty social safety net.
Which ideological vision for the NYPD will win out will become clearer with time. Shortly after announcing Tisch would stay on, Mamdani unveiled his public safety transition team. Among others, it includes Alex Vitale, a sociologist who has argued we should abolish police.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline “Will Mamdani Defund the Police?.”
Prosecutors said victims were shot, hacked with machetes, and dismembered as part of a racketeering operation that spanned years and terrified New Yorkers
On December 19th, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted two national leaders of the violent MS-13 street gang and two other members on racketeering charges tied to a series of brutal murders in Queens and on Long Island. The four defendants (22 defendants were part of the original indictment) were found guilty following a 10-week trial in the US District Court before Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall. Each now faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison when sentenced. The streets of New York City and Long Island can breathe a small sigh of relief. “These verdicts send a clear message: The NYPD will stop at nothing to identify, dismantle, and hold accountable any street gang that terrorizes our neighborhoods with violence,” said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
A federal jury convicted national MS-13 leaders Edenilson Velasquez Larin, 36, of Colorado and Hugo Diaz Amaya, 37, of Kansas City, along with Fulton … https://t.co/FWDR6DbFKn@RaymondOrta
Federal officials said the defendants were responsible for orchestrating or carrying out four gruesome and violent murders between 2016 and 2022 as part of the gang’s racketeering enterprise; the killings involved machetes and firearms.
Brooklyn Federal CourthouseCredit: Lauren Conlin
Those convicted are Edenilson Velasquez Larin, Hugo Diaz Amaya, Jose Espinoza Sanchez, and Jose Arevalo Iraheta. The gang members have a multitude of nicknames listed in the indictment. Velasquez Larin and Diaz Amaya were identified as national leaders of MS-13, a transnational gang known for extreme violence. Prosecutors said the two “gang-authorized” murders across the United States (operating outside prison), made them among the highest-ranking MS-13 leaders active on the streets; thus marking this conviction a huge win.
Credit: U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York
Velasquez Larin was convicted of multiple counts including racketeering conspiracy, continuing criminal enterprise, drug trafficking conspiracies, money laundering conspiracy, firearms offenses, and murder in aid of racketeering tied to four killings: the 2016 machete murder of 18-year-old Kenny Reyes in Uniondale; the 2018 shooting death of 20-year-old Victor Alvarenga in Queens; the 2020 shooting death of 25-year-old Eric Monge in Queens; and the 2022 machete killing of 20-year-old Oswaldo Gutierrez Medrano in Nassau County.
Espinoza Sanchez, a clique leader on Long Island, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, firearms offenses, and murder in aid of racketeering connected to three of the four killings, prosecutors said. Arevalo Iraheta was convicted on racketeering and murder charges tied to the Gutierrez Medrano killing, as well as firearms offenses.
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Federal prosecutors said the killing of Oswaldo Gutierrez Medrano was one of the most brutal, stemmed from internal MS-13 “discipline.” After an unauthorized double murder by a Sailors Locos Salvatruchas gang member in a Texas federal prison, gang leaders known as La Mesa ordered retaliation against the Sailors clique. Gutierrez Medrano, a Sailors member in New York, was lured to Nassau County on February 13, 2022, under the false pretense of receiving a routine gang “beating,” to prove himself, authorities said. Instead, he was attacked to death with machetes and a knife, dismembered, and buried in a wooded area.
Federal prosecutors said the crimes were carried out to increase the defendants’ standing within the gang, punish perceived rivals, and enforce MS-13 rules through violence.
“This verdict holds accountable four extremely dangerous MS-13 members who participated in heinous murders and now deservedly face mandatory life sentences,” said US Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. in a press statement. He credited the FBI, HSI, NYPD, plus Suffolk and Nassau County Police for their work on the investigation and dismantling of violent gang leadership operating in New York.
Lt. Jonathan Cedeno of the NYPD Citywide Pickpocket Unit.
Photo by Dean Moses
These grinches can’t seem to stay out of trouble.
More than half of all thieves that the New York Police Department’s Citywide Pickpocket Unit has cuffed in 2025 are recidivists, amNewYork has learned, as specialized cops work to curb sleight-of-hand criminals that surge during the holiday season.
The Pickpocket Unit consists of plainclothed cops who patrol the underbelly of the Big Apple in mass transit and — throughout the holiday season — scour crowded locations like the Bryant Park Winter Market, Rockefeller Christmas tree, and more where crooks lurk to pinch the belongings of unsuspecting New Yorkers and tourists alike.
Lt. Jonathan Cedeno, the team’s commanding officer, told amNewYork that cops have spent years blending into the masses and apprehending pickpockets in action to great success; he says the number of perpetrators have drastically plummeted in 2025.
“They definitely got the word. I don’t want to take all the credit. Obviously, it’s not just my team doing all the work. We work very closely with the detective squads and Intel units that work within the NYPD, and we share information also with outside jurisdictions, not just NYPD, but New Jersey. We work with Amtrak, MTA police. We just share information in this pickpocket because the more information we share, the more information we get, and we’re able to be prepared for these guys,” Cedeno said.
Lt. Jonathan Cedeno looks at surveillance footage of a pickpocket in progress. Photo by Dean MosesLt. Jonathan Cedeno patrols the subway.Photo by Dean Moses
Still, despite curbing the crime, many of those who persist are repeat offenders who keep returning to a life of crime, no matter how many times cops catch them in the act.
Even as pickpocket activity has decreased this year, Cedeno’s team has still managed to make approximately 40 arrests, excluding those with active warrants or ICards (flagged for previous crimes). Twenty-six of those 40 arrested individuals are recidivists.
“Unfortunately, it’s a very small group of individuals that continue to do this. They’re well known around the department,” Cedeno said. “During the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, we made three apprehensions. All three of the subjects have been previously arrested by my team on other events. So that tells you they only come to these major events to steal phones or wallets.”
According to sources with knowledge of pickpocket arrests, those recidivists have been apprehended dozens upon dozens of times.
One suspect, Darin Mickens, 58, has been arrested 50 times; 42 of the arrests were for felonies. He was cuffed multiple times by the Pickpocket Unit in 2020, 2022, and 2023.
In 2024, he was incarcerated but released in the spring of 2025 — and, police sources say, he has allegedly returned to a life of crime.
Authorities say that some pickpocket recidivists also have a history of other crimes. Another unnamed offender in Queens has previously served time for rape and is on parole, and has since been arrested upwards of 20 times for pickpocketing, but has been released because the crime is not of a sexual nature.
amNewYork reached out to district attorneys across the five boroughs for comment on the release of the offenders and is awaiting a response.
NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta oversees a roll call of the Pickpocket Unit.Photo by Dean MosesThe pickpocket unit scours the subway.Photo by Dean Moses
NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta emphasized the importance of the pickpocket unit, citing its ability to protect the public by blending in plainclothes and apprehending criminals in the act.
“The pickpocket team is so important because they’re in plainclothes, they’re specialists. They know exactly who to look for, the actions of pickpockets, how they move, and more importantly, they get to know who they are, and that’s important for us,” Gulotta said. “That intelligence they share has led to other arrests.”
For cops in the unit, they say it is moments like that which make the job worth it, adding that many times it is not just monetary value that is lost when a person is robbed; sometimes it is irreplaceable moments, like photos on cellphones, that get hijacked in the process.
41-year-old Victor Medina is also cuffed.Photo by Dean Moses
One police officer in the unit, whose identity was withheld due to the sensitive nature of their work, says it is all about giving back dignity to the victims.
“I know the feeling of getting robbed, because I’ve been a victim myself. So, any complaint we investigate in our unit, we take it very seriously. We’re gonna give back a little bit of that dignity that the person lost. And we’re gonna give 110% even more to try to get the person responsible,” the officer said. “We want this person to stop, and we want the person who has already lost the property, or who’s a victim of a crime, to get that dignity back.”
One police officer in the unit, who must remain unnamed due to the sensitive nature of his work, says for him it is all about giving back dignity to the victims.Photo by Dean Moses
Defense attorneys for Brian Walshe rested their case without presenting a single witness to rebut the prosecution’s assertion that he was jealous of his wife’s Ana’s new lover, and worried about going to jail in federal art fraud case, when he killed her to collect millions in life insurance
Surveillance image released by the NYPD shows a man wanted in connection with a late-night attempted rape in Brownsville on Nov. 16
Photo by NYPD/Crimestoppers
A 25-year-old woman was attacked in Brooklyn over the weekend when a stranger followed her, punched her in the face, and attempted to remove her clothing, police reported Tuesday morning.
The assault occurred around 11:35 p.m. on Nov. 16 near Watkins Street and Livonia Avenue in Brownsville, in the confines of the 73rd Precinct.
Police sources said the woman was walking alone when a man began following her. He then struck her in the face and tried to remove her clothing in what investigators are treating as an attempted rape.
The attack was interrupted when a passerby saw the struggle, prompting the suspect to flee on foot. The woman was taken to a nearby hospital and was listed in stable condition.
Detectives with the Brooklyn Special Victims Squad are conducting a canvass of the area to gather surveillance footage and gather witnesses to track down the suspect, who is still at large.
Additional surveillance footage released by the NYPD shows the man suspected in the late-night attempted rapePhoto by NYPD/Crimestoppers
On Tuesday, police released surveillance footage of the alleged suspect and are seeking the public’s assistance to help locate him. He is described as a man with a dark complexion who was last seen wearing a green jacket with white sleeves.
Police data shows there have been 34 rape reports in the 73rd Precinct so far this year as of Nov. 16.
Anyone with information regarding the attempted rape or the suspect’s whereabouts can call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS (for Spanish, dial 888-57-PISTA). You can also submit tips online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X (formerly Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
A man with a gun was killed Thursday in a shootout with police in Manhattan after he pointed his weapon at a man in an apartment building elevator and a deli worker and threatened to shoot up a hospital, police said.
New York Police Department officers took the man to a hospital in a police vehicle and he was pronounced dead, Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera told reporters. Police officers were taken to a hospital for evaluation.
The man was in an elevator in a residential building on the Upper East Side around 7 p.m. when spoke to another man and then pulled out a firearm and pointed it at him, police said.
Police said the man then went to a nearby deli, pointed a gun at a worker behind the counter and told him to call 911, saying he was going to a hospital to shoot it up.
Shortly after, the man briefly entered Mount Sinai Medical Center before leaving and placing a firearm on the ground, police said. He then went back inside, where he told a police officer working a paid security job that he had a gun, police said.
When the officer tried to escort him out, they struggled, the man retrieved his gun and the officer called for backup, police said.
The man then walked down the street and encountered police officers in vehicles. Rivera said the man immediately fired his gun at the officers when they got out of their vehicles.
The officers returned fire and hit him, he said.
“Every day, our officers put on their uniforms and they encounter dangerous situations across this city. But it’s another kind of danger when someone goes into a deli and hospital with a gun and opens fire directly at the NYPD,” Rivera said.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declared on Wednesday that he has made the final decision to keep Jessica Tisch as police commissioner. However, it remains unclear if she wants to stay in the position under the new mayor.
Photo by Dean Moses
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declared on Wednesday that he has made the final decision to keep Jessica Tisch as police commissioner. However, it remains unclear if the city’s top cop wants to remain at the helm under the new mayor.
Appearing on Good Morning America the morning after declaring victory as the Big Apple’s 111th mayor, Mamdani stated that he wanted to keep Tisch on top of the NYPD because of her efforts to stamp out corruption.
“I’ve made my decision to retain Commissioner Tisch. I’ve done so because Eric Adams had stacked the upper echelon of the NYPD with incompetence and corruption. She came in and tackled and started to deliver accountability and reduce crime across the five boroughs,” Mamdani said.
While the second-youngest-ever mayor-to-be says he is decisive in his decision, Commissioner Tisch has kept a tight lip about the situation.
When amNewYork reached out to the NYPD for comment, a spokesperson referred us to previous comments made by Tisch in which she refused to dabble into city politics.
“As I’ve said many times, it is not appropriate for the Police Commissioner to be directly involved or to seem to be involved in electoral politics,” Tisch said.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.Photo by Dean Moses
Still, this has not stopped members of the department from internally speculating on what exactly her next moves will be.
Some police insiders, speaking anonymously to amNewYork, believe Tisch has established a strong track record for herself through record-low crime numbers and suggest that she may have aspirations to run for mayor herself in the future.
Other sources within the department speculate that they do not believe she will stay because her ideals and religious background do not align with Mamdani.
On Wednesday morning, Mamdani held a press conference in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, where he was again questioned about his conversations with Tisch and whether he felt he had convinced her to stay.
“I look forward to having conversations with her on that very subject,” he added.
Although he has made several public overtures that he wished to keep Tisch as his top cop, he has not publicly stated that he has spoken directly to her about it, or if she had informed him of an agreement to stay.
amNewYork reached out to the Mamdani campaign, asking whether the mayor-elect has spoken with Tisch since announcing, in an Oct. 22 New York Times report, his intention to retain her as the city’s top cop. We are waiting for a response.
CORONA, Queens (WABC) — A 10-month-old baby is alive thanks to the help of two NYPD officers, who rescued the infant when he stopped breathing
Asia Rodriguez and Brandon Laboy are first-time parents.
Ten-month-old Makai is their greatest joy, and earlier this month, they almost lost him if not for two NYPD officers who saved his life.
“Oh, I would thank them. I would hug them. I would not let them go,” Rodriguez said.
Body-worn camera shows what happened when two of New York’s Finest answered the call of a baby in distress. Makai wasn’t breathing.
He had been down for a nap. Rodriguez was glued to the baby monitor just in time to see him throw up and start to choke. She immediately ran to him and called 911.
“He’s my life and I’m going to make sure every second counts and make sure I save him,” she said.
When two officers from the 115 Precinct showed up, Makai wasn’t breathing.
One of the officers took the baby, dressed in police pajamas, and patted his back, dislodging an obstruction.
It wasn’t until they saw the video Tuesday night that Rodriguez and Laboy realized how close they came to tragedy.
“It’s just incredible with the right training and what they’re doing, they saved his life,” Laboy said. “In those moments you can’t understate how good the training that they had is. So, it’s an awesome thing to see.”
“If I could see them, if they could come to my house directly and I could shake their hand and hug them, I would hug them,” Rodriguez said. “Just God bless them. Whatever blessing they can be offered in life that they are offered them, because they absolutely did what they were supposed to do and my son’s here because of them.”
All New York cops are required to be certified in first aid and CPR, and it sure paid off for the two officers. Both of them are rookies with less than two years on the job. Now they’re responsible for a save they will remember their whole careers.
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A box truck driver lost control of his vehicle in Midtown on Monday afternoon, colliding with another vehicle and struck eight pedestrians.
Photo by Dean Moses
Ten people were injured in Midtown when a truck driver lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a nearby van in a chain reaction collision on Monday afternoon that ended with eight pedestrians struck.
According to police sources, the incident unfolded on 8th Avenue and 30th Street at around 3:59 p.m. on Oct. 20. A Ryder rental truck driver careened into a parked work van and sent it hurtling onto the sidewalk. The vehicle struck eight pedestrians, the youngest being a 21-year-old woman.
“She had, like, head injuries, a big knot, a very huge one,” an eyewitness told amNewYork. “She was bleeding from the face, she was the one who took most of it.”
In addition to the pedestrians, the driver of the truck and his passenger were also injured. EMS rushed the 10 injured to Bellevue Hospital and Lennox Hill hospital. all involved are expected to survive. The NYPD Emergency Response Unit pulled the van, belonging to Mauceri Electric of Middle Village, Queens, from the sidewalk.
A Ryder rental truck driver careened into a parked work van and sent it hurtling onto the sidewalk. The vehicle struck eight pedestrians, the youngest being a 21-year-old woman.Photo by Dean MosesA box truck driver lost control of his vehicle in Midtown on Monday afternoon, colliding with another vehicle and struck eight pedestrians.Photo by Dean Moses
A trail of broken glass and debris was scattered across the roadway; slices of pizza dropped by someone was also strewn on the sidewalk.
One eyewitness, who asked not to be named, claimed that he spoke to the driver, who alleged that his steering wheel became locked.
“When I asked the driver what happened, because I was right here, he was like: ‘Man, I just lost control.’ The steering wheel just lost control, he said it wouldn’t let him control it anymore. Basically, he said it just kept picking up speed. He said the brake stopped working, like the engine just kept revving and getting faster,” the witness said.
Police have not yet verified that statement or the actual cause of the crash, which remains under investigation.
No arrests have been made and no criminality is suspected.
A trail of broken glass and debris could be seen scattered across the roadway while slices of pizza could be seen left on the sidewalk.Photo by Dean Moses
The name of a hero cop shot to death in the line of duty was added to the NYPD’s memorial wall in Battery Park on Wednesday, along with cops who perished from 9/11 related illnesses.
Photo by Jonathan Portee
The name of a hero cop shot to death in the line of duty in Queens last year was added to the NYPD’s memorial wall in Battery Park on Wednesday, along with a number of officers who died from 9/11-related illnesses.
While the killing put a spotlight on criminal recidivism in New York, Diller himself was hailed as a hero, and on Oct. 15, his name was etched in stone.
Top brass, along with Mayor Eric Adams, attended the ceremony to honor Diller as well as the 49 other officers whose names were added to the 28-year-old memorial. Those officers had participated in the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and died of illnesses related to their work there.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said all 50 officers honored on Wednesday had “fulfilled their oaths of service without hesitation, their quiet courage came with no conditions, and their commitment to this noble cause was uncompromising.”
The NYPD held a special ceremony attended by top police brass in which Diller and 49 others were honored by having their names added to the 28-year-old memorial.The NYPD held a special ceremony attended by top police brass in which Diller and 49 others were honored by having their names added to the 28-year-old memorial.Photo by Jonathan Portee
“They represent the very best of us, and they remind us what it truly means to put the safety of others above your own,” Tisch said. “Every time they came to work, they understood the risk, they accepted it, but no cop ever takes it lightly, and no cops family does either, because watching your loved ones leave home without ever really knowing is an unspeakable burden to bear and for the families here today is yet another reminder of everything that you have lost.”
The memorial itself was dedicated in 1997 and stands just in the shadow of the rebuilt World Trade Center.
“When it was dedicated in 1997 we could never have anticipated what would happen two blocks from here, or how that day would still be reverberating from this granite wall, a wall once buried in the dust and debris of the darkest day our city has ever known it, then bore witness to our recovery and to our rebirth, and through it all, this memorial stood in silent tribute, and each year, the tribute grows,” Tisch added.
Police are on the hunt for a man who slashed an MTA worker inside a subway tunnel in Brooklyn late on Monday night.
According to police sources, the incident unfolded inside the Nostrand Avenue-Eastern Parkway subway station on the 3 line in Crown Heights at around 10:39 p.m. on Sept. 29.
The NYPD reported that the victim, a 64-year-old MTA worker, spotted a man walking along the southbound tracks’ roadbed inside the tunnel.
Law enforcement sources reported that the employee confronted the trespasser, instructing him to leave the area, but the pair got into a dispute. The suspect became enraged, police said, and slashed the worker across his neck before fleeing further into the tunnel.
Officers from the NYPD Transit Bureau responded to the incident. The victim was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition and is expected to survive.
The perpetrator was last seen wearing a black and white shirt. No arrests have been made and the investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with information regarding this attack can call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS (for Spanish, dial 888-57-PISTA). You can also submit tips online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X (formerly Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
Kenneth Siriboe, 21, of Union Beach, NJ, found himself in handcuffs on Monday for the vicious attack that occurred inside of an apartment building near East Gun Hill Road and Putnam Place at around 5 a.m. on Sept. 28. Authorities were able to apprehend Siriboe after he was recognized from surveillance footage shown on the news.
Kenneth Siriboe, 21, of Union Beach, NJ, found himself in handcuffs on Monday for the vicious attack that occurred inside an apartment building near East Gun Hill Road and Putnam Place at around 5 a.m. on Sept. 28. Authorities were able to apprehend Siriboe after he was recognized from surveillance footage shown on the news.
Law enforcement sources said Siriboe allegedly followed a 36-year-old woman inside the building where he attacked her in the second-floor hallway.
It’s alleged that he ruthlessly choked the victim and raped her as she begged him to stop. The attack ended with Siriboe allegedly stealing her wallet containing about $250, police reported.
Police say they arrested 21-year-old Kenneth Siriboe of Union Beach, New Jersey on Monday for the vicious attack that occurred inside an apartment building near East Gun Hill Road and Putnam Place at around 5 a.m. on Sept. 28.Photo by Dean Moses
Surveillance footage shows the suspect leaving the building’s stairwell while pulling up his pants. He was last seen running eastbound on Gun Hill Road while wearing black pants, a black jacket, and white sneakers.
That outfit changed late Monday afternoon when Siriboe was walked out of the Bronx Special Victims Unit headquarters, located at 1086 Simpson St., while dressed in a police-issued Tyvek suit. Detectives held his arms while he walked with his hands handcuffed behind his back. He refused to answer questions about the crime.
Sources familiar with the investigation report that Siriboe used to live in the building where the attack took place. While the victim did not know the perpetrator, she did state that he looked familiar.
Siriboe does not have a criminal record in New York but does have a rap sheet in New Jersey, police sources said. He is now charged with rape, robbery, strangulation, burglary, criminal obstruction of breathing, criminal trespass, assault, and sexual abuse.
