Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s allies are publicly breaking with him over NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and City Hall sources say his endorsed House candidate is directly undermining him.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is standing by his handpicked police commissioner even as socialist allies demand her removal after ICE agents shot a suspected gang member who fled arrest in the Bronx.

The loudest pressure is coming from Darializa Avila Chevalier, the House candidate Mamdani endorsed only months ago. City Hall staffers are openly angry about her social media attacks and public rhetoric aimed at Commissioner Jessica Tisch and the NYPD.

The New York Post reported that sources with knowledge of the mayor’s circle described the reaction in blunt terms.

One source said staffers “were pissed about what she did on social media and her public rhetoric on NYPD.” Another called it “a direct undermining of Mamdani.”

"City Hall was like, ‘what the f*** are you doing!’"

That frustration lands hard because Mamdani went out on a limb for Chevalier during the June primary in New York’s 13th Congressional District. She defeated incumbent Democrat Adriano Espaillat in the deep-blue seat, and the Democratic line all but guarantees a win in next month’s general election.

Chevalier’s nearly 400-word attack on Tisch

Last Friday, Chevalier posted a nearly 400-word social media tirade after immigration agents shot an illegal immigrant described as a suspected gang member as he fled in a car. She accused the NYPD and Tisch of breaking New York’s sanctuary city rules, laws that bar local cops from helping federal immigration enforcement.

Chevalier wrote that the department had fueled a federal crackdown on immigrant communities.

"Last night, the NYPD and Commissioner Tisch violated the spirit, if not the letter, of our sanctuary city policies and fueled the Trump Administration’s attempt to demonize our communities,"

She did not stop at criticism. She demanded structural change at the top of the department.

"The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group must be disbanded as quickly as possible, and Commissioner Tisch must step down,"

The Strategic Response Group, or SRG, is the NYPD unit that handles large protests and disorder. Mamdani himself vowed to disband it during his campaign. Now one of his endorsed candidates is using that pledge as a weapon against the commissioner he appointed.

The Post’s account states that the NYPD did not assist ICE in the Bronx arrest and that the SRG did not respond to a related protest. Chevalier’s claim of a sanctuary violation sits against that reported record, and City Hall knows the gap is political trouble.

Protests, video, and a widening left-wing pile-on

On Thursday night in Marble Hill, Chevalier joined an aggressive anti-ICE protest. Video captured her getting in the face of a calm police supervisor and accusing him of escalating the scene. She has encouraged the street pressure while distancing her campaign from the mayor who helped elect her.

A person briefed on canvasser instructions said volunteers were told to answer, “I can’t speak about the mayor, but I can tell you what Darializa is prioritizing.” That is a clean break in messaging from the endorsement that carried her through the primary.

Other Mamdani-backed figures have not matched her tone. House candidates Brad Lander and Claire Valdez did not issue similar calls to fire Tisch. But Illapa Sairitupac, a DSA member and state Senate candidate also endorsed by the mayor, quickly joined the demand.

"Abolish ICE, disband the SRG, fire Tisch,"

The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose leaders are close friends of the mayor, struck a softer public note while still targeting the commissioner. National DSA has pushed for Tisch’s ouster as well, a split that fits a broader pattern of Democratic Socialists fracturing over Mamdani and the NYPD.

The chapter’s social posts framed ICE as the enemy and put Tisch on the clock.

"Jessica Tisch must get ICE out of New York and end NYPD complicity with these terrorists. If the Commissioner can’t put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired."

Mamdani stands by Tisch while allies keep swinging

Mamdani has been inundated with demands from socialist comrades to dump the commissioner and honor his old SRG pledge. He has dodged the city’s press corps for days rather than feed the story. Sources say he is not a fan of Chevalier’s style and was talked into the endorsement by adviser Morris Katz.

Still, he is standing by Tisch. That choice puts him at odds with the same activist left that helped define his rise, and it leaves City Hall managing a candidate who is already treating the mayor as optional.

One source said Chevalier “is throwing her own fireball rhetoric to rally the folks,” then added the obvious: “But instigating doesn’t help.” Insiders now list her among their problems before she has even taken a House oath, alongside figures such as Council Speaker Julie Menin and Republicans.

“She’s a loose cannon,” one insider said. “They are sick of her, and she’s not even started in Congress.” Her team is already working on a speech, possibly for Election Night or sooner, that would again call for Tisch to be fired.

City Hall’s worry is not abstract. Staffers are annoyed that Chevalier is stoking anti-ICE protests and fear visible disorder could give the Trump administration a reason to put more federal force on New York streets. That is the practical cost of rhetoric that treats every immigration arrest as a political stage.

Endorsements without discipline invite open revolt

Mamdani’s problem is the one soft-on-enforcement coalitions keep rediscovering. He appointed a commissioner, claimed credit for progressive muscle, then watched the same network demand the commissioner’s head the moment federal agents did their job in the Bronx.

Fellow Democrats have already shown how quickly they create distance when Mamdani’s priorities collide with governing reality, whether on foreign policy or day-to-day control of the streets, including moments when party leaders sidestepped his most aggressive foreign-policy pushes.

The mayor’s own recent record includes public friction with the NYPD over basic operational choices, a reminder that internal mixed signals with the department are not new inside this administration.

Chevalier’s primary win was supposed to prove the socialist bench was ready for higher office. Instead it produced a candidate who tells canvassers not to defend the mayor, posts lengthy attacks on his police commissioner, and treats sanctuary politics as a mandate to cripple the units that keep protests from becoming free-for-alls.

Democratic infighting is no longer a closed-door affair; it spills into public view whenever Israel, policing, or immigration force a choice between activists and voters who still want order, a pattern also visible when national progressives clash in full view of the country.

Oversight pressure on the Mamdani administration is rising on multiple fronts at once, including City Council scrutiny of how City Hall runs its political messaging machine in hearings on the administration’s influencer operation.

The core conflict is simple. ICE pursued a suspected gang member. An illegal immigrant fled in a car and was shot. Chevalier and her allies answered with calls to abolish ICE, disband the SRG, and fire the commissioner, while insisting the NYPD had betrayed sanctuary rules the department, per the reporting, did not even assist.

Mamdani can keep dodging microphones. He cannot dodge the contradiction. He endorsed the loudest voice now undercutting his commissioner, and his own staff is left calling it what it is: direct undermining from someone who has not yet sworn the oath.

Voters who want secure streets and honest government should notice who reaches for the firing squad the minute federal officers enforce the law, and who expected loyalty after handing them the endorsement.