Who are the Real Extremists?

Mamdani turns New York snowball fight into a snowball fight

NYPD officer caught in snowball-involved incident

“Criminal,” New York’s police commissioner Jessica Tisch intoned. “Disgraceful” said the NYPD. Radicals, former commissioner Ray Kelly bloviated on TV. They’ve crossed “a clear line,” a prominent police association warned.

They’re talking about snowballs thrown at police officers in Washington Square Park earlier this week, an incident that should have been answered with the officer laughing it off or ignoring it completely.

But in today’s America, and particularly in Zohran Mamdani’s New York, a snowball flight was elevated to a national security crisis.

And not just elevated. Like the killing of two American protesters in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, the official outrage and the rush to judgment was eerily reminiscent.

These officials are the extremists here. There are dozens more, including police unions and former department leaders, who felt it necessary to speak out, saying the snowballers had converted the park into some kind of forward operating base.

“When individuals choose to turn a park into a launching ground for attacks on police, they cross a clear line,” the Sergeants Benevolent Association said in a statement. “Today it is snowballs. Tomorrow it could be rocks, bottles, or worse.”

Even former Mayor Adams got into the fray, as did Andrew Cuomo (remember him?).

The only sane person here is Mayor Mamdani himself, who brushed it all off with lighthearted banter.

“I’ve seen the videos of kids throwing snowballs at NYPD officers,” Mamdani said, adding: “Treat them with respect—if anyone’s catching a snowball, it’s me.”

The extremists on cable news screamed that Mamdani was downplaying a serious threat, claiming that some shadowy group was orchestrating the event.

“This was put on a radical website to muster people to Washington Square Park to participate,” former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said on Fox News before any facts were in.

It wasn’t clear from Kelly’s remarks which website he was referring to. But I can report—drumroll here—that the snowball fight was organized by a social media page called Sidetalk on Instagram.

What else to do during a snow day in America’s largest city? Sidetalk is known for its humorous man-on-the-street interviews with New Yorkers and meme-infused depictions of New York culture. Seems pretty innocuous to me!

Evidently Mamdani thought so too.

“I’m not going to be banning snowball fights or organized snowball fights,” he reportedly said.

While the extremists in the media continued hammering away on the strategic snowball threat, Mamdani was meeting with President Trump, scoring a victory on something a bit more important than a snowball fight: ensuring that New York would never turn into a real Minneapolis.

The president made no threats and he agreed to release a New York student (wrongly) detained by ICE.

Meanwhile, the supposedly centrist voice-of-reason commissioner Jessica Tisch is doubling down, saying after she reviewed videos of the snowball fight: “The behavior depicted is disgraceful…”

I also see a disgrace, but not in the snowball fighters.

— Edited by William M. Arkin