By Hank Russell
Nassau County Executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman is calling on New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to remove from his transition team an activist known for his tirades against the New York Police Department.
Blakeman said Mamdani should fire Kazi Fouzia from his transition team after a video surfaced in which she referred to NYPD officers as “killers.”
In the 2020 video, Fouzia — director of organizing at Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) Beats and self-described “revolutionary organizer” — shockingly asked those who support their family members becoming police, “What are you proud for? That your relative would become a killer one day, or brutally beat our people?” (This starts at the 28:58 mark.)
Fouzia was tapped to join Mamdani’s transition team as a member of the Committee on Worker Justice.
“Calling our police officers — the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect New Yorkers — ‘killers’ is disgusting, dangerous, and completely unacceptable,” said Blakeman. “Mayor-elect Mamdani cannot allow someone who publicly demonizes law enforcement to sit on his transition team. Kazi Fouzia should be fired immediately.”
Blakeman said this anti-police rhetoric is part of a broader, deeply troubling pattern embraced by both Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul. Both were endorsed by the Working Families Party, a radical group that has repeatedly called for defunding the police and weakening law enforcement across New York State. Additionally, Hochul endorsed Mamdani for mayor over Andrew Cuomo.
Fouzia was not the only one to espouse anti-police sentiments. Mamdani had called for defunding the police — which he has since refuted — and once mocked a police officer on social media for “crying in his car.” A video also resurfaced in which he compared the NYPD to the Israeli Defense Forces by “The boot of the NYPD is on your neck,” he said. “It’s been laced by the IDF.”
Less than a month before the election, Mamdani issued an apology to the NYPD for his comments.
Blakeman said that changes nothing, considering that he has an anti-cop activist on his transition team.
“By empowering a radical anti-police activist and standing shoulder to shoulder with ‘Defund the Police’ allies, Mamdani and Hochul have made their priorities crystal clear,” Blakeman concluded. “As governor, I will stand with law enforcement, reject the ‘Defund the Police’ agenda, and ensure extremists have no influence over the future of New York.”
This is not the first time Blakeman has attacked the mayor-elect. As previously reported in Long Island Life & Politics, he blasted Mamdani for bringing on Ramzi Kassem as Mamdani’s chief counsel, who previously defended an al-Qaeda terrorist convicted of bombing a civilian oil tanker, represented a leader of a pro-Palestinian encampment, and has a public record of excusing terrorism, minimizing the September 11 attacks, accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” and saying Israel has no right to defend its people from terror attacks.
In addition, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, who was named Mamdani’s director of appointments, was forced to resign after antisemitic social media posts resurfaced, as LILP previously reported.
LILP reached out to Mamdani’s camp for comment, but did not respond as of press time.