#new A pair of New York City Police officers with heavy foreign accents got into a back and forth with a senior citizen who says they refused to help her.
The incident sparked outrage from critics over how the makeup of the NYPD is changing with Zohran Mamdani at the helm.
The elderly woman, who has lived in New York her entire life, was upset that the officers were not helping her with how to navigate around the yellow police tape blocks, so she could get to where she was going.
She repeatedly calls herself a senior citizen who needs help and questions why two officers
Are unwilling to help. ***
Fast Facts:
The official NYPD recruitment website says “United States citizenship is required at the time of appointment as a Police Officer.” However, New York is trying to drop the citizenship requirement altogether.
Senate Bill S4498, introduced last year, would let localities waive the citizenship rule for police and firefighters and allow anyone legally authorized to work in the U.S. to apply. (Think all those truck drivers who were given CDLs then their work authorization expired.)
The department is openly pushing diversity and has lowered standards to fill ranks.
In early 2025 the NYPD cut the college credit requirement from 60 to just 24 credits to boost hiring.
A recent recruit class included officers from 44 different countries who speak more than 33 languages.
Conservatives argue that rapid changes in the makeup of the force, and more recent migrants with limited English proficiency, come at the expense of basic competence, common sense and American values
Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist has a well-documented history of hostility toward the police.
In June 2020 he tweeted:
“We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety. What we need is to #DefundTheNYPD.”
He called the department a “rogue agency” and pushed to cut its funding during the George Floyd riots.
During his 2025 campaign he flip flopped saying he was “not running to defund the police.”
But as Mayor he has already ditched plans to hire thousands more officers, instead pouring money into “racial equity” programs
Conservatives say his apology was fake and that his policies are already making the streets less safe.
