New York City – Four migrants were arrested in Phoenix, Arizona on Monday, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office stated that they are “not affiliated” with the investigation into the brutal Times Square beating of two NYPD officers, despite earlier reports.
According to ICE sources, a group of migrants were apprehended at a Greyhound bus station in Phoenix in connection to the NYPD attack. However, the DA’s office backed away from these claims on Wednesday.
A total of at least seven suspects have been arrested as of Wednesday, with as many as 14 people potentially involved in the attack. Surveillance footage recorded on January 27 outside a Times Square homeless shelter shows several men kicking officers on a sidewalk and attempting to pry them off a man police had taken to the ground.
The Manhattan D.A.’s Office stated that “To date, we have not received any indication from federal authorities that they have detained anyone related to our case,”. Nobody was seriously hurt in the attack, but the video of officers being pummeled has prompted waves of public outrage.
Furthermore, in press appearances on Monday, Mayor Adams stated that the vast majority of the nearly 175,000 migrants who have arrived in the city are law-abiding. He also expressed a willingness to pull back on a set of laws that often block the city from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Describing the Times Square incident as “an attack on the foundation of our symbol of safety,” Mayor Adams also called on the City Council to consider “if there should be more collaboration” with federal immigration officials. Since 2014, the police department and city jails have been barred from holding people in custody on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless they have been convicted of certain violent crimes and a judge has issued a warrant for their removal.
It wasn’t immediately clear what role, if any, the city’s so-called “sanctuary” policies may have had in the cases of the men accused of assaulting officers in Times Square. The situation remains ongoing and evolving.