Former and current city employees marching across Brooklyn Bridge. | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
NEW YORK — A senior official in the de Blasio administration has left the mayor’s office over his handling of recent protests across the city — the first departure of a high-ranking aide since the start of the demonstrations demanding police reform.
Senior adviser Alison Hirsh was so troubled by de Blasio’s near-unconditional defense of the NYPD amid incidents of violence against protesters, she decided to step down from the job she was hired for last fall, three sources familiar with her departure confirmed to POLITICO.
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Hirsh will begin this week as a senior adviser to Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, focused on the complicated task of reopening public schools after the coronavirus forced a system-wide closure in March.
“I could not be prouder to join the amazing team at the Department of Education, particularly at this moment in history,” Hirsh, who will maintain her $230,000-a-year salary, said in a prepared statement. “As a working mother I feel this personally. Nothing is more important than the safe reopening of schools so kids can keep learning and parents can get back to work.”
Hirsh did not address de Blasio’s management of the protests in her statement, but those familiar with her decision said she had repeatedly challenged the NYPD’s tactics during staff meetings and calls with the mayor and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea. She witnessed what she considered unnecessary force while monitoring a march in Brooklyn on May 30, when police shoved demonstrators and used pepper spray to subdue them, the sources said.
The mayor was unmoved by the account — and many others caught on video, which which he often says he has not seen. Later that same night he defended the NYPD, including officers who drove a police car into a crowd of protesters who were tossing water bottles and traffic cones at the vehicle.
“Anyone who is a peaceful protester, it’s time to go home. The point’s been made,” he said during an impromptu interview on NY1 late that evening. He also said those particular officers “were trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation” and blamed demonstrators for surrounding their car.
Hirsh — and many other past and present de Blasio staffers — were outraged by such a strong defense of police from a mayor who ran on a platform of reforming the NYPD and ending aggressive tactics toward black and Latino New Yorkers. In her Twitter bio, Hirsh describes herself as “anti-racist” and prior to joining the administration she was political director at the building service workers union that represents many low-income, black and Latino workers.
The mayor has sought to quell the uprising in recent days: Two officers were suspended on Saturday and in a staff call Sunday afternoon, he promised more discipline would be meted out. He also said he believed officers’ lives were in danger from factions of demonstrators looting stores and looking to use the marches as an opportunity to create chaos.
Hundreds of former employees have signed an open letter to de Blasio and marched from City Hall to Downtown Brooklyn on Monday in protest of his handling of the NYPD. They are calling for immediate reforms — some of which he has said he supports — and a cut to the department’s budget, which will be negotiated with the City Council in the coming weeks.
In a TV interview Tuesday morning, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams accused de Blasio of capitalizing on his biracial family for political gains. “He uses his proximity to blackness very often, but we don’t see a commensurate type of reform,” said Williams, who was once aligned with de Blasio.
In a statement, de Blasio called Hirsh “an invaluable adviser during one of the toughest times our city has ever faced.”
The Department of Education is making two other staffing changes: Chief of Staff Edie Sharp will become chief strategy officer, and Mary Wall will replace her, City Hall spokesperson Freddi Goldstein said.
