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New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, called for “respect” of local police officers in the wake of Monday’s blizzard after a viral video showed some getting pelted by snowballs in Washington Square Park while responding to a large snowball fight.
In the video, a crowd of people boo and jeer at two officers, and some throw snowballs in their faces. At one point, the officers push at least two people to the ground in response to the snowballs.
“Officers, like all city workers, have been out in a historic blizzard, keeping New Yorkers safe and cars moving,” Mamdani said in a post on X. “Treat them with respect.”
Evidently alluding to his having jokingly told schoolchildren that they could toss snowballs at him for ordering them back to class on Tuesday, Mamdani added: “If anyone’s catching a snowball, it’s me.”
No arrests were immediately made in connection with the case. But Jessica Tisch, New York City’s police commissioner, said in a statement on social media that detectives were investigating the matter.
She also said that the behavior depicted in the video “is disgraceful, and it is criminal”.
New York City’s Police Benevolent Association (PBA), the union representing local officers, also rebuked the snowball throwers, calling their conduct “unacceptable and outrageous”. The union also called for those responsible to be arrested and charged with assault of a police officer.
In a statement on Tuesday, police said: “Multiple uniformed officers were struck in the head at close range with snowballs causing injuries to the head, neck, and face area.” Paramedics subsequently brought the officers to Northwell Greenwich Village hospital to receive medical treatment for their injuries, the police statement said.
As happens often after most snowstorms, New York City dwellers gathered in public parks for a snowball fight as Monday’s blizzard conditions eased up. Officers responded to a 911 call about a disorderly crowd at Washington Square Park just after 4pm on Monday, police officials said.
Mamdani and Tisch’s comments about the pelted officers came as cities all across the north-east US were digging out from the snow associated with Monday’s blizzard. The storm halted travel across the region and caused hundreds of thousands of power outages.
Meteorologists said that the storm was the strongest in a decade, dumping more than 2ft (61cm) of snow in parts of the region. More than 3ft (91cm) fell in Rhode Island – surpassing snow totals from the north-east’s historic blizzard of 1978.
The storm was set to move away from the east coast on Tuesday, heading up to the Canadian Maritime provinces, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
In Massachusetts, there were still more than 250,000 power outages as of 10am ET on Tuesday. The state’s governor, Maura Healey, had lifted a blizzard-related state of emergency for Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties, though it remained in effect for all other state counties.
She also signed a directive allowing non-emergency state employees to work from home on Tuesday and encouraged employers to let their workers do the same, in an effort to keep the roads open for clearing crews and power restoration workers.
“While the worst of the storm is behind us and much of the state is turning to shoveling out, conditions remain severe and dangerous across south-eastern Massachusetts,” Healey said in a press release.
In an unprecedented move, the Boston Globe announced on Monday that it would not have a print version of the newspaper out for delivery on Tuesday. The publication wrote that the heavy snow conditions “prevented the paper’s printing staff from safely getting to Taunton, now the home of the Globe printing press”.
Travel bans in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware had been lifted by Tuesday.
In New York City, students were back in the classroom on Tuesday after a rare snow day on Monday. During a news conference before Tuesday’s return to classes, Mamdani pre-emptively acknowledged students’ disappointment, telling them: “You can still pelt me with snowballs when you see me.”
It wasn’t just students who were disappointed, however. The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew, said the union would ensure that teachers who could not make the commute to school did not face any disciplinary action. “No one should jeopardize their safety trying to report to work,” he said in a social media post.
As parents and caregivers trudged through snowbanks and refrozen ice to bring their children to school, some expressed frustration with the mayor’s decision.
“We’re walking on thin ice here,” Danielle Obloj, the parent of a Brooklyn fifth-grader, told the Associated Press. “One more day would’ve been fine.
“They should never have let these kids come back to school.”
Across the north-east, transit was slowly coming back to life. The Long Island Rail Road was operating on a limited schedule on Tuesday, in part thanks to its deployment of a 53ft, 80-ton spreader-ditcher machine used for heavy-duty snow removal. The powerful machine – nicknamed Darth Vader – is capable of clearing snow drifts up to 15ft deep.
