New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani has once again managed to turn a solemn 9/11 commemoration into a display of tone-deaf political theater, this time by invoking the words of a fallen NYPD detective whose family the city has repeatedly refused to recognize.
At a recent dedication ceremony for the NYPDs new 9/11 Memorial Wall, the self-described leftist mayor appeared to be paying tribute to the sacrifices of first responders, according to RedState, yet his remarks have left at least one 9/11 widow outraged.
On its face, the event was a straightforward memorial, but for Cathy Hanson, whose late husband Detective Mike Hanson served at Ground Zero, the mayors participation and choice of words were nothing short of infuriating.
Mamdani chose to quote Detective Hanson during the ceremony, presenting the line as a guiding principle for officers.
In the words of ESU Detective Mike Hanson, who before he passed gave his younger officers a rule to work by: Do what you can for who you can, with whatever it takes, he said.
Detective Hanson spent nine grueling months working at Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks and later died of ALS, a progressive neurological disease widely believed by many families and advocates to be linked to toxic exposure at the site.
Despite that service and sacrifice, his name is absent from the new memorial wall, and his widow has been denied survivor benefits an astonishing 13 times.
Hanson said that anyone watching the mayors speech would naturally assume that her husband was among those formally honored at the site.
People that didnt know anything and watched that conference would assume that the guys mentioned by Mamdani are up on that wall, Hanson said. All they had to do was Google Mikes name and that he was denied.
Her frustration only deepened as she pointed out how easily the mayors staff could have verified the facts before using her husbands words as a rhetorical flourish.
All they had to do was look up on that wall and know that Mikes name wasnt there."
According to Hanson, the citys justification for denying her 9/11 survivor benefits has been consistent and cold: ALS is not recognized as a qualifying condition under the current rules.
Im really upset. We were denied 13 times. This has been an eight-year battle, she told News 12, though she vowed to keep fighting in her husband's name.
Her determination is rooted in a promise she made before her husband died, a promise she says she has no intention of abandoning.
It keeps me going because I promised Mike that I would fight for him and for all others that came after him, Hanson said, fighting back tears. I have never broken a promise.
Hanson also stressed that her familys ordeal is far from unique, noting that many of her husbands fellow responders are suffering from similar conditions.
So many of his friends have come down with Parkinsons and dementia and all of these neurological illnesses, and their families are going through the same thing that Im going through, Hanson said. I know its from that day. From his time down there. I just know it.
Despite her anger over the misuse of her husbands legacy, Hanson did acknowledge one recent action by Mamdani that she believes could help expose the truth about what first responders faced.
The mayors office recently released more than 170,000 pages of previously unpublished records on air quality around Ground Zero in the months following the attacks, a move Hanson cautiously welcomed.
Im very happy that they released all these files the other day that showed about the air quality, which we knew all along, Hanson said.
Critics, however, argue that the document dump looks more like a political diversion than a serious attempt to secure justice for those still battling 9/11-related illnesses.
At the announcement of the records release, Mamdani stood alongside 9/11 survivors, elected officials, activists, and comedian-turned-advocate Jon Stewart, casting blame on past leaders.
People got sick bc the leaders they trusted lied & told them it was safe to breathe, he says.
While the Mamdani administration is not directly responsible for the years of benefit denials suffered by Hanson and other ALS families, his use of Detective Hansons words without ensuring his name was honored in stone underscores a troubling lack of diligence and respect.
City Hall Deputy Press Secretary Sam Raskin responded to the widows criticism by saying they are looking into the details of (her late husband's) case.
For a city that never tires of invoking Never Forget, the treatment of families like the Hansons suggests that remembrance often stops where bureaucracy and political convenience begin.
RedState will keep you updated should they ever get around to that.
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