Astoria Councilmember Cabán Faces Violent Threats Amid Media Onslaught

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Two Astoria lawmakers have faced violent threats in recent days amid a conservative media campaign focusing on their public safety views.

Much of the harassment has been directed at Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, whose office has been the subject of "violent threats," according to Council Speaker Adrienne Adams's office. The speaker's office said Thursday that Council security officers had taken steps to protect Cabán's staff.

Cabán, a socialist with a stated vision of one day abolishing the city's police department, has been the subject of at least seven New York Post articles since last week, plus multiple segments on Fox News.

The scrutiny has stemmed largely from two tweets that Cabán posted to her government account last week: a graph showing an overall decrease in violent crimes committed against subway riders, which she called a "one-in-a-million event"; and a list of "public safety resources" that Cabán's office created alongside Astoria Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.

The resource list, published two days before an EMS worker was randomly stabbed to death on an Astoria street corner, drew ridicule from the New York Post last week, which mocked its suggestions that New Yorkers call 311 or seek social services for mentally ill people instead of calling 911.

By Monday, Cabán's office discovered multiple voicemails left at her Astoria office filled with "vulgar and violent language," according to an NYPD spokesperson — who said the messages did not contain any direct threats.

But Emily Gallagher, a socialist Assemblymember from Brooklyn, tweeted that both Cabán and Mamdani's offices had, in fact, received "death threats and violent messages" — forcing both offices to shut down their phone lines.

"To even suggest people use a variety of strategies to solve community conflict is met with vitriol and violence," Gallagher added. "The New York Post are attacking [Cabán] because they benefit from conflict and violence."

While the Post claimed days later that Cabán's office had notified the NYPD about the threats, Cabán's spokesperson stressed that it was Council leadership who decided to get police involved.

"Our office reported the large volume of hostile, violent, and threatening voicemails and emails to Council security, who, given the intensity of the harassment campaign, determined that the situation warranted law enforcement involvement," a spokesperson for Cabán said Friday. "As an office, we take our cues on security protocols from Council security."

Speaker Adams's office called the threats "unacceptable," saying Thursday that "the overheated rhetoric needs to be immediately dialed down and de-escalated."

Hours later, however, one of Cabán's own colleagues — Joann Ariola, a Republican from Howard Beach — appeared on Fox News to blast Cabán above a chyron reading "NYC's Queer Abolitionist Hates Cops."

"She is absolutely the abolitionist, the obstructionist and the chaos inciter that you said she was," Ariola told host Jesse Watters, whose conservative news show draws upwards of 2 million viewers each night.

Cabán, 35, was elected to the City Council last year in District 22, winning about 63 percent of the vote in the final round of the Democratic primary. Two years earlier, Cabán had been narrowly defeated by Melinda Katz in the Democratic primary for Queens District Attorney.