The socialist mayor of New York City arrived at Staten Island’s National Night Out Against Crime on Tuesday evening to deliver greetings. Three thousand five hundred residents, families, and police supporters were waiting. The result was one of the more satisfying political moments of the year.
The crowd booed him off the stage. Not politely. Loudly, enthusiastically, and with chants of “go home” that followed him as he retreated from the podium after less than a minute of remarks.
The video is everything.
Mayor Mamdani got booed on Staten Island at the NYPD National Night Out event at Midland Beach, per this Facebook video. He smiled through it and kept remarks *very* short. pic.twitter.com/eswUhADDms
— Jeff Coltin (@JCColtin) August 5, 2026
Mamdani smiled through it — because what else do you do when a crowd of 3,500 people treats your presence as an insult? — kept his remarks extremely brief, and disappeared. He arrived late to an event celebrating the police community. He left faster than he came.
?WATCH: Mamdani was booed during the annual National Night Out Against Crime police event held on Staten Island.
Mamdani took the stage, greeted attendees and thanked organizers, but left the stage less than a minute later to boos, “go home” chants and thumbs-downs from some in… pic.twitter.com/nPe87j5YnF
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) August 6, 2026
The context makes this exactly as satisfying as it looks. This is the man who wrote in 2020 that “we don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety” and called for defunding and dismantling law enforcement to “end the cycle of violence.” He campaigned on defunding the police. He killed a plan that would have added 5,000 NYPD officers. He has spent months calling ICE agents threats to public safety while doing everything in his power to obstruct federal immigration enforcement in a city experiencing a federal arson attack on its own courthouse.
And then he showed up to National Night Out Against Crime. In Staten Island — the one borough where he received 23% of the vote. To a crowd of 3,500 people who came specifically to support their police.
The NYPD unions have been warning anyone who would listen since before the election that Mamdani’s anti-police ideology would have real consequences for officer morale, public safety, and the relationship between the police department and the communities it serves. The crowd at Midland Beach on Tuesday night was the living proof of those warnings. These are not right-wing activists. These are New York City residents — families who live in the city — who showed up to support their local cops and reacted to Mamdani’s presence the way they react to someone who has spent years treating the police as the enemy.
Mamdani’s handlers almost certainly knew this was coming. You don’t show up to Staten Island’s pro-police event on a Tuesday night without understanding the risk. The calculation was apparently that attending was better than the optics of skipping it entirely.
They miscalculated. The boos were louder than any speech he could have delivered.
The NYPD has been warning about Mamdani for months. New York City voters who didn’t vote for him already knew. Staten Island has always known.
On Tuesday night, for about 45 seconds, the rest of the country got to see it for themselves.
