Socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani tapped a radical who idolizes cop-killer Assata Shakur to advise his administration on public colleges, The Submit has realized.
Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari — the co-executive director for the Alliance for High quality Schooling, a far-left activist group as soon as fronted by “Intercourse and the Metropolis” star Cynthia Nixon — was chosen final week for Mamdani’s transition committee for youth and schooling.
In an interview with the web site Lingua Franca, Shaakir-Ansari was requested if she might spend a day with any girl previous or current, who wouldn’t it be, and what query would she ask her.
The activist and mom of eight responded with the convicted cop killer.
“Assata Shakur — I imagine she has a lot to supply. With all the reflection you could have accomplished after all the years as a Black Panther, what recommendation do you’ve for black girls to maneuver the motion whereas additionally caring for one another?” she mentioned.
Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, was convicted within the cowardly homicide of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster on Could 2, 1973.
She was using with comrades Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli after they have been pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike by state trooper James Harper for a busted taillight. Foerster, who was offering backup, was shot and killed within the ensuing gunfight.
Together with the Black Panthers, she was a member of the perimeter radical leftist group the Black Liberation Military.
She was discovered responsible of homicide and assault in 1977. Two years later, three BLA members disguised as guests busted her out of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Girls in New Jersey. They drew weapons and took two correction officers hostage and hijacked a jail van.
The fugitive in the end fled to communist Cuba in 1984, the place she was granted asylum. Shakur, who described herself as a “twentieth century escaped slave,” was added to the FBI’s listing of most wished terrorists in Could 2013 — the primary girl to ever.
New York’s Best — and those that have misplaced cops of their household — have been galled by Mamdani’s decide.
“Supporting a cop killer, you already know, just isn’t . . . factor,” Grace Machate, whose husband, NYPD Officer Robert Machate, was murdered in 1989 when she was six months pregnant, instructed The Submit.
is on Mamdani’s Youth and Schooling committee. Zakiyah Ansari/ Instagram
Machate, like Foerster, was shot and killed throughout a visitors cease whereas questioning “two suspicious males.”
“When somebody kills an officer, whether or not he’s from New Jersey, New York or Alabama, I don’t care. It’s one thing that households are going to stay collectively on,” she mentioned.
Former NYPD lieutenant and US Marine Eric Dym was shocked by the choice.
“That’s unbelievable. I don’t assume it’s a small oversight. I believe it’s a acutely aware determination,” mentioned Dym.
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“When somebody with that historical past is given a seat on the desk it sends the message that your sacrifice is negotiable . . . this simply strips away on the morale of the NYPD.”
Added former NYPD lieutenant and co-host of the “New York’s Best: Retired and Unfiltered Podcast,” John Macari: “Shaakir-Ansari has each proper to her opinions, however she should not have any enterprise shaping schooling coverage in a metropolis the place 1000’s of cops entrust their very own youngsters to be educated and saved secure.”
Shaakir-Ansari, who additionally has three grandchildren, has been an schooling activist for 20 years. She was named Metropolis and State New York Journal’s 25 most influential folks in Brooklyn in 2017.
She launched her personal vogue line in 2024, elevating $15,000 on GoFundMe in the direction of it.
Mamdani, in the course of the mayoral marketing campaign, refused to sentence a sick tribute to the cop-killer from the Democratic Socialists of America.
“We vow to honor her legacy by recognizing our responsibility to combat for our freedom, to win, to like and defend each other as a result of we have now nothing to lose however our chains,” the DSA mentioned on X after Shakur died on Sept. 25.
Mamdani ducked questions concerning the tribute when grilled by The Submit.
“I’m working to be the mayor of New York Metropolis,” he mentioned. “I’m working to characterize the folks of New York Metropolis. My focus is on the problems of town, and I’m accountable to those self same New Yorkers.”
Retired NYPD sergeant and John Jay Professor Joe Giacolone mentioned the Large Apple is in for a “impolite awakening” given picks like Shaakir-Ansari.
“You decide somebody who praises a cop killer, you don’t want a slide rule to determine what’s occurring right here — there’s gonna be two varieties of cops left, those that need to get out and might, and those that need to get out and might’t.”
The Submit reached out to Shaakir-Ansari.
