Man Arrested in N.Y.C. Snowball Fight That Police Said Injured Officers

The event, which began playfully, shifted in tone when the police appeared. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said that the episode did not appear to be a crime, while other officials called for arrests.

The police on Thursday arrested a 27-year-old man in connection with the striking of two police officers with snow and ice during a snowball fight in Washington Square Park this week, the latest twist in an escalating political fight.

The man, Gusmane Coulibaly, was taken into custody early on Thursday morning at his home in the Bronx and charged with assaulting a police officer, obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct, according to the police. The Police Department was still seeking three other men, two of them believed to be between the ages of 18 and 20, who were also wanted for assault.

The arrest three days after the episode in the park was a new turn in a saga that has divided New Yorkers and many of their lawmakers and prompted an early disagreement between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch over whether the striking of the officers constituted a crime.

For many in the city, though, it was a surprising and unwelcome escalation of what they saw as a harmless day of fun.

In a statement after the arrest, Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani, said the mayor’s stance that participants should not be charged had not changed. “As the mayor has said, police officers deserve to be treated with respect,” Ms. Pekec said. “The videos he saw showed a snowball fight that got out of hand. He does not believe this situation rises to the level of criminal charges.”

The episode began as a giant, citywide snowball fight, one organized by social media creators in celebration of the blizzard that pummeled the city on Sunday and Monday, closing schools and keeping many commuters home from work. But the gathering soon escalated when several police officers, called to control the crowd, were pelted with snowballs and large packs of snow.

The fight was captured in several videos, which show the officers walking through the park, at first apparently chuckling as a few snowballs sail at them, but later becoming tense as more and larger snowballs fly at their necks and faces.

Another video shows the officers retreating to their cars outside the park as a large group of what appears to be teenagers chases after them, whooping and tossing snowballs. The officers largely do not appear to engage with the snowball throwers, but two officers can be seen shoving people into the snowbanks as the officers run toward a bathroom.

The police said two officers had been later taken to a nearby hospital with injuries to their necks and faces.

Hours after the videos surfaced on Monday, Commissioner Tisch called the behavior “disgraceful” and “criminal” and said detectives were investigating the episode. She was joined by a chorus of lawmakers, police union representatives and critics of the mayor, who condemned the behavior as aggressive and in some cases illegal.

Mr. Mamdani, for his part, on Tuesday morning praised the police for their work during the blizzard and exhorted New Yorkers to be respectful. But later that afternoon he seemed to break somewhat with the commissioner, saying that he did not believe anyone should be charged.

He maintained that position on Wednesday, while addressing questions about the snowball fight for a second consecutive day, dismissing the notion of a rift between himself and Ms. Tisch.

“I’m appreciative of the work that my police commissioner does, and the work that we are doing to keep New Yorkers safe across this city,” he said.

As the political saga played out in news conferences and on social media on Tuesday and Wednesday, a torrent of memes and posts surfaced online mocking the police officers’ outrage and criticizing them for spoiling the fun.

It was unclear on Thursday if the Manhattan district attorney’s office would proceed with charges against Mr. Coulibaly, or any others who could be arrested. But the arrest had already begun generating praise from the city’s police unions — and blowback from their critics — on social media.

Mr. Coulibaly has been previously arrested in New York City in connection with an attempted robbery in the transit system, the police said. He pleaded not guilty earlier in February to charges of robbery, petty larceny and harassment and was released on his own recognizance, court records show.

The charges against him bear similarities to a case in 2019, when three men were arrested after dousing police officers with water during a heat wave. In that case, which also generated debate, one of the men pleaded guilty to harassment and received 10 days of community service.

Mr. Coulibaly’s arrest comes at an important moment in Mr. Mamdani’s relationship with the Police Department. The mayor has spent months disavowing his comments from 2020 calling the police “racist” and “anti-queer,” and has taken pains to mend his relationship with the force, sometimes to the dismay of his progressive allies.

His characterization of Monday’s episode, and his break with the commissioner over the charges, threatened to complicate that relationship this week.

It would not be the first time a progressive mayor had lost ground with the department over perceived disrespect. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose approach to the police was similar to Mr. Mamdani’s, famously lost the support of police union leaders after invoking his biracial son in a speech and saying that for young people, “there’s a fear” of the police.

Officers later turned their backs to Mr. de Blasio when he appeared at the funeral of two police officers who had been killed.

For many New Yorkers, however, the charges on Thursday represented an overreaction by the police. In posts on X, users described the charges as silly and calculated. The humor of many of the posts stood in stark contrast to the sternness of the response by police and union officials.

The mayor himself seemed to adopt a little bit of that humor this week. Asked on Wednesday if he would ban future gatherings, Mr. Mamdani said he had no intention of doing so.

“I’m not going to be banning snowball fights or organized snowball fights,” he said to laughter.

Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.

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