Teen Tren de Aragua-linked mob ambushes NYPD in another brazen Times Square assault: Report

A group of roughly a dozen young thugs linked to Tren de Aragua reportedly assaulted two New York Police Department officers in Times Square on Friday evening.

The culprits have reportedly been tied to Los Diablos de 42, a young subset of the violent Venezuelan gang TDA. The youngest suspect was just 12 years old.

'Make no mistake, this is not low-level crime, it's organized violence carried out by gang members that we've already taken off the streets for preying on New Yorkers.'

Fox News reported that five of the 11 suspects are illegal aliens from Venezuela. Those individuals have been arrested.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) and NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch detailed the brutal assault during a Tuesday press briefing.

Tisch explained that two officers approached a group of 10 to 12 individuals after they observed the mob surrounding three others.

"The officers engaged the group and attempted to break up what appeared to be a wolfpack-style robbery. Instead, they were ambushed, pelted with scooters, basketballs, and other makeshift weapons. This was a targeted attack, planned, deliberate, and carried out with intent," Tisch stated.

Within hours of the ambush, law enforcement was able to identify some of the suspects as Los Diablos de 42 members, thanks to the city's gang database.

Tisch called the database "one of the most critical tools that we have to protect our cops and to protect our communities." She urged the New York City Council to abandon its efforts to abolish the database.

"We need our City Council to stop legislating against our cops and to start legislating for public safety," Tisch declared.

She noted that all those arrested were "repeat offenders" linked to "citywide robbery patterns."

Tisch also stated that no officers sustained any major injuries.

"Make no mistake, this is not low-level crime, it's organized violence carried out by gang members that we've already taken off the streets for preying on New Yorkers," she added. "And now they're back, ambushing cops in the middle of Times Square. It's not a fluke, it's a system failure. It's what happens when repeat offenders are allowed to cycle through arrest after arrest without meaningful accountability. It's what happens when there are no real consequences."

Adams emphasized that such violence would not be tolerated.

"It's horrific enough to be a victim of a crime, but when someone openly assaults a police officer, you are attacking our symbol of safety, and it cannot be tolerated," he said.

However, New York City's sanctuary policies continue to shield illegal aliens from federal immigration officials.

On Sunday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrived at a NYPD station, where one of the teen suspects was being held, but the agents were turned away.

Tisch stated that the NYPD is "looking into how [ICE] got there."

"I was surprised that ICE was at a precinct because ICE shows up to do civil immigration enforcement. And the NYPD does not participate in civil immigration enforcement. And our officers did a tremendous job," she said.

Tisch added, "They followed a procedure that we had put out in early January, an operations order, that explains exactly what steps they should take in a scenario such as that. And they did not turn over the person that was in custody to those ICE agents at that time."

In January 2024, a mob similarly ambushed NYPD officers in Times Square. Some of those suspects were also linked to TDA.

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