NYC Mayor Eric Adams: Failing Upward?

By: Joel E. Gordon

He ran on being a veteran police executive. While there were those with high hopes that a former police official being elected as mayor of America's largest city would result in positive progress on crime rates and stimulate positive progress in a city on the decline, those with insider knowledge correctly thought otherwise. Now the New York City mayor is reportedly exploring a possible presidential run in 2024?

New York City crime is way up since DeBlasio left. Reportedly up by 65% on subways and 43% overall.Perhaps more people should have paid attention to clues that Eric Adams was not the answer to the city’s crime problems.

An example is the summer 2020 incident where a Brooklyn woman followed then-Borough President Eric Adams’ advice for New Yorkers to settle disputes neighbor-to-neighbor rather than calling 911 and was shot dead after she followed Adams advice and confronted some neighborhood hooligans setting off illegal fireworks. Adams had said people should talk to their neighbors about the “nonviolent act,” rather than call the authorities and risk a “heavy-handed” police response.

What?

Now this … Mayor Adams recently publicly stated that he is tired of seeing NYPD officers on their phones at subway stations — and is asking New Yorkers to snap a picture when they see it happening,.“You walk downstairs, you see five transit officers standing at the booth looking at their phones.” “If you see it, send me a picture. Let me know,” he said, “because I’ll go to that district the next day and see exactly what’s happening.” “Send me a shot. New Yorkers, you see that, send me a photo and I will be at that station.”

Fortunately, Pat Lynch and the PBA are speaking up as Adams is seemingly uninformed and mistaken again. Selling out the officers when frequently the officers are looking at their department-issued smartphone as a result of being ordered to use them on official business; Lynch suggested perhaps NYPD management might as well go back to pen and paper resulting in longer response times and lack of officers to help. Having the public make officer complaints by snapping pictures sets up unnecessary confrontations and unwarranted feelings of ill will.

So, Mayor Adams has now called a meeting with the NYPD’s commanding officers to solicit ideas, three plans each to reduce crime in their patrol areas, about combating soaring crime ahead of the historically heightened violent crime summer months.

Adams has also requested statistics on crime, summonses, homeless encampment clearings and Civilian Complaint Review Board cases, as well as information on each command’s integrity control officer. “I have a major meeting with all of my commanders,” he said. “We’re going to sit down for several hours to get our summer plan in order, as well as think how we deploy police.”

But not everyone is taking it seriously. One source with knowledge of the meeting quipped that commanders think bringing ideas to combat crime is a “joke” according to a report in the New York Post newspaper.

In a recent interview, Mayor Adams unequivocally stated that city employees who were fired for being unvaccinated will never get their jobs back. This nonsensical policy will further contribute to the permanent loss of highly trained and valuable employees and investigators.

It is clear that Mayor Adams is no fan of many of his former police colleagues and likewise they not of him. Are New Yorkers pleased with Adams’ performance? As former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has asked “When does the honeymoon end?” Likely it is already rapidly waning.

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com