Her perspective on law enforcement is anything but flattering.
Kara McCurdy, who serves as the director of photography for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has a well-documented history of expressing her contempt for police officers, even going so far as to voice a desire to physically confront them.
In May 2020, McCurdy, who aligns with socialist ideals, took to X to express her frustration, writing, “Isn’t it messed up that we can’t just hit the police?”
On September 20, 2023, McCurdy posted a now-deleted message targeting the 114th Precinct in Astoria. She recounted an incident involving two NYPD squad cars, expressing her anger by writing, “Get lost, you pieces of garbage,” after alleging that the officers tried to “corner” her vehicle in the rain when she honked at them for cutting her off.
In what seems to be a follow-up post just two minutes later at 4:44 a.m., she vented further: “I sincerely wish nothing but the worst imaginable outcomes for those cops who mess with the safety of me and my neighbors in ALREADY DANGEROUS SITUATIONS. I hope you all suffer.”
McCurdy, a 32-year-old resident of Queens, identifies as a “documentary photographer” whose artistic endeavors are “rooted in the belief that the intimate is inherently political.”
She first met Mamdani in 2019 during a campaign party for socialist Councilwoman Tiffany Caban, during Caban’s failed Queens district attorney race, she told Vanity Fair.
A few months later, the Savannah College of Art and Design graduate volunteered to help Mamdani’s 2020 state Assembly campaign and has been his campaign photographer since — earning $36,200 shooting last year’s mayoral race and Hizzoner’s transition to City Hall, records show.
The Mayor’s Office refused to say what McCurdy earns as director of photography.
Critics say McCurdy’s hiring is the latest example of the soft-on-crime mayor’s lack of respect for the NYPD.
“Our police force is already feeling demoralized and disrespected, and now there’s an avowed and open cop hater cavorting around Gracie Mansion with the Mamdanis,” said Councilman Phil Wong (D-Queens) “As they say, show me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are, and this mayor is certainly showing us who he is.”
McCurdy — who is pals with Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji — photographed and documented the first couple’s nuptials last year.
Duwaji is already under fire for her own online antics — such as liking a series of anti-Israel social media posts, including one claiming Hamas’ rapes of Israelis during the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack were a “mass hoax.”
McCurdy’s antipolice rhetoric stretches back to at least June 2012 when she posted “freaking hate cops” without explanation.
She’s also gone out of her way to slam NYPD cops on X — even when they’ve cut her some slack.
“I almost ran over a woman and the cop said, ‘pls stop at stop signs’ like???? This is my third encounter with cops within the month, and they’ve all been stupidly nice to me???? ACAB til I die baby,” she wrote June 4, 2020, referring to the acronym “All Cops are Bastards,” a rallying cry for the “Defund the Police” movement.
Six days later, McCurdy photographed a young girl she was babysitting standing, with her right fist raised, atop a park bench with “FTP” – an acronym for the protest phrase “F—k The Police” — spraypainted on it. The shutterbug posted the photo on X, along with the caption: “You love to see it.”
Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) wondered what kind of message McCurdy’s hiring sends to the NYPD.
“The mayor, who is supposed to be leading the department, trusted this woman enough to have her take his wedding pictures and brought her with him into the halls of government, all while she has a history of spouting off on social media about her desire to punch cops and calling police officers pigs,” she said. “This is repugnant.”
The Mayor’s Office and McCurdy did not return messages.
