Loved ones of 9/11 victims call for Mamdani to be excluded from memorial service, plan to ‘ignore’ him

The loved ones of victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks plan to “ignore” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani if he speaks at the memorial ceremony at Ground Zero marking 25 years since the horrific attacks.

According to a report on Saturday from the New York Post, several families of those killed on September 11^th hope the mayor doesn’t speak given past divisive remarks and associations with controversial figures.

A Change.org petition asking the 9/11 memorial’s organizers to reconsider Mamdani’s inclusion in the ceremony has garnered more than 98,700 verified signatures as of Saturday afternoon.

The petition describes the annual remembrance of 9/11 as “a solemn occasion” grounded in “shared American values: respect for the victims, recognition of the gravity of the attacks, and a clear rejection of the ideologies that contributed to such violence.”

 

“It is in this spirit that we, the family members of those murdered on 9/11, write to express our concern regarding the potential inclusion of Zohran Mamdani in the 25th-year commemorative events,” the petition’s description states.

The petition outlined several issues the group takes with the Mayor regarding his public positions on the terror attacks:

• Mamdani’s perceived reluctance to clearly and unequivocally condemn phrases such as “globalize the intifada,” which many interpret as an endorsement of violence;
• Mamdani’s father’s book, published shortly after 9/11, in which he contended that suicide bombers should be “understood as a feature of modern political violence rather than stigmatized as a mark of barbarism,” and the mayor’s acknowledgement that his father “shaped his views;”
• Mamdani’s praise for Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who has been linked to radical Islam and was named as an alleged co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing;
• Mamdani’s appointment of as New York City’s chief counsel after he previously represented Ahmed al-Darbi, who was convicted in an al-Qaeda tanker bombing plot;
• Mamdani’s endorsement of Senate candidate Aber Kawas, who described 9/11 as an attack “a couple of people did in the context of U.S. capitalism, racism, white supremacy, and Islamophobia;”
• Mamdani’s support for Democratic Socialists of America member and Democrat nominee for the U.S. House, Darializa Avila Chevalier, who wrote in a since-deleted tweet in 2019, “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.”

“We respectfully ask that the organizers carefully consider whether Mr. Mamdani’s participation would align with the intention of the ceremony and the expectations of the families most directly affected by the tragedy,” the description read. “The 25th anniversary should remain centered on remembrance, unity, and an unambiguous rejection of the violence and extremism that defined that day.”

 

The organizer, Giovanni Galante, lost his wife, Grace Catherine Galante, on September 11^th, when she was 29 years old.

 

In an opinion article published by Fox News, Galante explained that his wife was at her desk on the 105^th floor of the North Tower, above the floors (93 through 99), which were struck by American Airlines Flight 11 that morning.

 

The aircraft destroyed all three escape stairwells above the 91^st floor, trapping everyone in the 19 floors above, which caught fire.

 

Galante expressed that the annual Ground Zero ceremony “is the one mercy” amid the grief he routinely experiences in the days leading up to September 11^th.

“The names, all 2,983 of them, read out loud by loved ones, for hours, until every single person is remembered. No speeches, no politicians at the microphone, just the names,” he wrote. “Whoever built it that way understood something: for one morning a year, the most famous piece of ground in America belongs to ordinary grieving people, and to no one else.”

Galante said that Mamdani’s behaviors were “wounds” to the families who lost loved ones in the attacks.

 

Mamdani also faced backlash for interviewing streamer Hasan Piker, who in 2019 said, “America deserved 9/11.” Mamdani first declined to condemn the remarks but later called them “objectionable and reprehensible.”

“Nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died on 9/11; 22 years later, the death hasn’t stopped,” Mamdani wrote on X in 2023. “We mourn our neighbors who died that day. The hundreds of thousands who died in the wars that followed. The unknown millions injured & displaced. In their memory, we work toward a better world.”

Nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died on 9/11; 22 years later, the death hasn't stopped.

We mourn our neighbors who died that day. The hundreds of thousands who died in the wars that followed. The unknown millions injured & displaced.

In their memory, we work toward a better world.

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) September 11, 2023

“He’ll show up to be spiteful,” said Angie Pesce, whose 34-year-old brother, Danny Pesce, was one of the 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees killed in the attack on the North Tower.

Maureen Santora, whose 23-year-old son Christopher, an Engine 54 firefighter, was killed in the South Tower,

 

agreed that Mamdani isn’t welcome.

“I just hope that he doesn’t say a single word because most of us will be very upset,” the mother said.

Jeanette Puccio-Pick, who was 9 years old when her father, Fiduciary Trust International Vice President Joseph Pick, was killed in the South Tower, said the strongest protest against the mayor is silence.

“If the mayor shows up, that’s his prerogative. I’m there to honor my father,” she asserted.

Pick was on the 94^th floor of the South Tower, which was struck by United Airlines Flight 175 between floors 77 and 85. Only 18 people above the impact zone were able to escape due to a single stairwell remaining intact.

Galante told the New York Post that no one intends to block the mayor or argue with him.

“I know he likes to come in your face and try to say hello and shake your hand, but I would definitely ignore him,” he said.