Hold onto your hats, folks—New York City’s incoming Socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has just dropped a bombshell by appointing a radical activist with a troubling admiration for a convicted cop-killer to his transition team for youth and education.
According to the New York Post, this decision, made last week, to include Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari on the committee has ignited a firestorm of criticism from law enforcement and families of fallen officers, who see it as a dangerous signal about the direction of Mamdani’s administration.
Let’s rewind to the root of this controversy: Assata Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, was convicted for the 1973 murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster during a violent encounter on the New Jersey Turnpike.
The incident began as a routine traffic stop for a broken taillight, but it quickly escalated into a deadly gunfight that left Foerster dead at the hands of Shakur and her associates from the Black Liberation Army, a fringe radical group.
Convicted of murder and assault in 1977, Shakur didn’t stay behind bars long—by 1979, she broke out of prison by fellow extremists in a brazen escape involving hostages and a hijacked van.
She eventually fled to communist Cuba in 1984, where she received asylum and later branded herself a “20th century escaped slave,” even as the FBI named her the first woman on their most wanted terrorists list in 2013.
Fast forward to today, and Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, co-executive director of the far-left Alliance for Quality Education, has openly expressed her admiration for Shakur in an interview with Lingua Franca, musing about the advice this convicted killer might offer.
“Assata Shakur — I believe she has so much to offer,” Shaakir-Ansari said, pondering the insights a Black Panther veteran might share with black women about advancing their cause.
Well, that’s quite the role model to pick when you’re shaping policies for NYC’s kids—hardly a comforting thought for the thousands of police families who send their children to city schools.
The backlash has been swift and fierce, especially from those who’ve lost loved ones in the line of duty, like Grace Machate, whose NYPD officer husband was murdered in 1989 during a traffic stop. “Supporting a cop killer, you know, is not . . . a good thing,” Machate stated, cutting straight to the heart of why this appointment feels like a slap in the face to law enforcement.
Critics argue that placing someone with such views in a position of influence over education policy sends a chilling message: the sacrifices of officers are up for debate, and the progressive agenda might just trump public safety concerns.
Mamdani himself hasn’t exactly rushed to clarify his stance, dodging questions during his campaign about a tribute to Shakur posted on X by the Democratic Socialists of America, which vowed to “honor her legacy” with revolutionary fervor.
Meanwhile, Shaakir-Ansari, a mother of eight and a longtime education activist with accolades like being named one of Brooklyn’s most influential by City and State New York Magazine in 2017, remains silent on the controversy despite outreach from the media.
Her resume might include launching a fashion line with $15,000 raised on GoFundMe in 2024, but no amount of side hustles can distract from the core issue: her admiration for a figure tied to violence against police is a tough pill for many New Yorkers to swallow, especially when she’s helping shape the future of youth education under Mamdani’s watch.