The leading mayoral candidate for New York City, Zohran Mamdani, is spending big on private security for his campaign and personal life despite previous calls to defund the police.
The campaign for Mamdani, who is the Democratic candidate for New York mayor and a self-identified member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has spent $33,495 on private security, according to expenditures reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Expenses reported in the New York City Campaign Finance Board show that Mamdani's campaign submitted three payments to Advanced Security & Investigations in June and July.
Advanced Security & Investigations, a New York state-based security professionals' group, offers a range of services, including armed and unarmed protective services.
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According to the company's website, it is also a "proud employer" of personnel from the New York Police Department, which Mamdani previously called to defund, as well as the New York State Police, New York City Sheriff's Office and several other law enforcement departments in the area.
The purpose listed for the various payments, which ranged from about $8,000 to around $13,000, is "security."
Mamdani has also recently made headlines for leaving New York City to throw a lavish wedding celebration in Uganda, which was reportedly guarded by armed special Ugandan military forces as well as his own private security detail.
The three-day-long exclusive wedding bash in Uganda also included masked military security and a cellphone-jamming system.
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Mamdani has been facing intense backlash for his previous calls to defund the NYPD following a deadly shooting in midtown Manhattan last month that left five individuals, including the suspect and NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, dead.
On June 28, 2020, Mamdani posted on social media, "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. But your compromise uses budget tricks to keep as many cops as possible on the beat. NO to fake cuts - defund the police."
"We need a socialist city council to defund the police," he wrote again on July 3, 2020.
Again, in December 2020, Mamdani wrote, the New York City Council "tried to make the NYPD reduce its overtime budget by half. They simply refused. There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt. Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence."
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However, Mamdani has taken a very different tone during his campaign, saying this week that those tweets are "out of step with my positions as a candidate."
After the shooting, he told reporters during a press conference, "I am not running to defund the police."
However, he has not disavowed a more recent social media post from December 2024 in which he pledged to disband the NYPD's Strategic Response Group (SRG), which is tasked with responding to mass shootings and other emergencies.
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He wrote, "As Mayor, I will disband the SRG, which has cost taxpayers millions in lawsuit settlements and brutalized countless New Yorkers exercising their First Amendment rights."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
