Mamdani's left flank demands Tisch removal after ICE shooting

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani arrived at an October 7 peace vigil on Wednesday evening expecting to mourn the dead from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, he was met with chants of "traitor" and "Ziohran," as pro-Palestinian activists drowned out speakers and forced organizers to move the event behind police barricades. The disruption crystallized a growing tension within Mamdani's political coalition: his democratic socialist base believes he has abandoned core commitments, and they are using every opening to demand he prove otherwise.

The most immediate flashpoint is Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Mamdani retained her last year—a decision that reassured moderate New Yorkers and establishment Jewish organizations like UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council. But progressives saw it as a capitulation. Tisch is a self-described "proud Zionist" from a prominent Jewish family, a holdover from Mamdani's predecessor Eric Adams, and someone who has criticized campus pro-Palestinian protests. For many on the left, keeping her in place signaled that the mayor's socialist rhetoric would not translate into action on criminal justice reform or police accountability.

Then, on Thursday afternoon, an ICE agent shot and wounded a Dominican man in his car while the man's five-year-old son sat in the back seat. The shooting ignited the powder keg. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist who won her primary with Mamdani's endorsement and is expected to join Congress next year representing Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, called for both the disbanding of the NYPD's Strategic Response Group—the heavily armed unit that often responds to protests—and Tisch's removal. "The NYPD spent more time protecting a militia that just shot someone than protecting New Yorkers," she wrote on social media.

By Friday, seventeen democratic socialist elected officials and nominees, including congressional nominee Claire Valdez, had signed a letter with a stark ultimatum: Tisch must end NYPD assistance for ICE operations and disband the Strategic Response Group, or she must be fired. The Democratic Socialists of America's New York City chapter—which Mamdani has called his "political home"—echoed the demand. Illapa Sairitupac, another democratic socialist whom Mamdani endorsed, posted simply: "Abolish ICE. Disband the SRG. Fire Tisch."

The pressure reflects a broader frustration among Mamdani's left flank. Ten months into his term, he has not yet followed through on campaign promises to dissolve the Strategic Response Group. He also backed away from a vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, later saying he lacked the authority to do so. Anti-Zionist groups including Pal-Awda and Within Our Lifetime, along with student organizations, accused him of succumbing to "Zionist pressure." At the vigil, protesters carried signs depicting Mamdani as "Chief Executive of the NYPD SRG" and criticized his decision to allow Israeli real estate events at synagogues and his newly released antisemitism strategy, which some argue funnels funds to organizations they view as prioritizing Zionism over Judaism.

Mamdani's allies, however, argue that the protesters do not represent his actual voter base. Abby Stein, an activist and member of both the DSA and the left-wing group Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, noted that many of the signs at Wednesday's protest were from the Maoist Communist Union, which opposed Mamdani before he took office. Some protesters were distributing Spartacist, the journal of the Trotskyist International Communist League. Erica Jones, one of the Trotskyist protesters, made clear: "We certainly didn't support Mamdani or vote for him. We knew he was running as a Democrat and he would be as big of a sellout as AOC and Bernie Sanders."

Yet even Stein, sympathetic to Mamdani, acknowledged legitimate grievances within his coalition. "There are things that people are upset over that I think are legit—like keeping Jessica Tisch on, for example," she said. "A lot of us were not very happy about it." She invoked Ed Koch's pragmatic maxim from the 1970s and '80s: if you agree with a politician on nine out of twelve issues, vote for them. The implication was clear—no mayor will satisfy everyone, and some friction is inevitable. But for Mamdani, the friction is coming from the very base that elected him, and it is sharpening around a single, removable figure: the police commissioner he chose to keep.