Ground Zero is not a stage. That is the point retired Port Authority police officers keep making in letters sent this month to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul. Do not attend the 25th anniversary commemoration on September 11. Your presence would cause profound pain.
The Port Authority Retired Police Association represents about 600 former officers from New York and New Jersey. In letters dated August 14, association president John McDevitt wrote that the anniversary is a solemn day of remembrance, not a political occasion or a photo opportunity. He asked both officials to mark the day with a written statement, a public message, or a separate event instead.
The group's objection to Mamdani centers on what the officers call his record and rhetoric on policing, along with political associations they view as hostile to law enforcement and sympathetic to anti-American movements. The letter to Hochul is even sharper. It cites her decision earlier this year to illuminate One World Trade Center in recognition of Muslim American Heritage Month. To officers who served at the site, where 37 Port Authority police officers and 47 other members of the Port Authority family died in the 2001 attacks, that choice felt like an affront. Because of it, McDevitt wrote, Hochul has forfeited the privilege of standing alongside them at Ground Zero on this 25th anniversary.
Both officials say they will attend anyway. Hochul's office said she has enormous respect for all the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 and will proudly stand alongside them at this year's commemoration. Her spokesperson added that Muslim New Yorkers served as first responders and helped unite the city after the attacks, and that opposing anti-Muslim bigotry is compatible with honoring the victims. A spokesperson for Mamdani reiterated that the mayor plans to be there to honor the families, the survivors, and the first responders forever impacted by that horrific terror attack.
This is not the first push to keep Mamdani away from the ceremony. A petition organized by 9/11 family members has gathered more than 95,000 signatures urging event organizers to bar him from the memorial. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee challenging Hochul in November, has also weighed in. He told Newsmax that he understands why current and retired Port Authority police officers and other first responders do not want the two Democrats at Ground Zero. If they attend, he said, people should stage a peaceful protest and turn their backs on them.
The National September 11 Memorial and Museum has said before that the ceremony remains free of politics. Officials who attend do not deliver remarks and remain in designated areas. That rule exists for a reason. It tries to keep the focus on the people whose lives, courage, and sacrifice the ceremony exists to honor.
I get why Mamdani and Hochul want to be there. They are the mayor and the governor. Showing up is part of the job. It signals solidarity. It says they stand with the families and the first responders. Skipping the event would read like a snub, or worse, an admission of guilt. No elected official wants that headline.
But the officers are not asking for a debate. They are asking for space. They lost colleagues at the World Trade Center. They watched the site become a symbol, then a brand, then a backdrop. Every year the ceremony walks a tightrope between grief and politics. This year the rope feels thinner. The officers' plea is simple. Let the day belong to the people who were there, and to the families who still carry the loss.
There is a catch, though. If Mamdani and Hochul show up, the story becomes about them. Cameras will hunt for reactions. Pundits will parse every gesture. The officers' warning could turn into the very controversy they hope to avoid. That is the risk they are calling out. Not malice. Not conspiracy. Just the predictable pull of politics toward a sacred space.
Hochul's team argues that honoring Muslim American Heritage Month and opposing Islamophobia does not erase respect for 9/11 victims. Mamdani's team says he will honor the victims, survivors, and first responders at the ceremony. Those statements may be true. They may even be sincere. But truth and sincerity do not always quiet pain. For some in the 9/11 community, the wound is still raw. The sight of certain figures at Ground Zero feels like a fresh insult, no matter the intent.
Blakeman's call for a peaceful protest if the two attend adds another layer. It turns a request for quiet into a potential spectacle. Turn your backs on them, he said. That is a powerful image. It is also a guarantee that the day will not pass without a fight.
The officers' letters do not ask for an apology. They do not ask for a policy change. They ask for absence. That is a hard thing for an elected official to grant. Absence reads as weakness. It reads as shame. It reads as a concession to critics. But absence can also be an act of respect. It can say that some spaces are bigger than the office you hold.
Twenty-five years is a long time. It is also no time at all for the people who lost someone that day. The officers' plea is not about erasing Mamdani or Hochul from public life. It is about protecting a day that belongs to the dead, and to the living who still miss them. Whether the two officials hear that plea, and act on it, will say more about their judgment than any speech they could give at the podium.