“Meet the police coming in and out”: the candidate for law and order in the mayor of New York

When the race for mayor of New York really began late last year, the city was still convulsed by the assassination of George Floyd and cries of “detuning the police” rang out from the Bronx to Battery Park.

Now, as the Democratic primary approaches on Tuesday, Eric Adams, a former black police officer who has called for more New York City officials, is one of the favorites to win a contest that has become a referendum on attitudes of New Yorkers to the police and public safety.

Several surveys have shown Adams leader a field full of people as an increase in shootings and hate crimes has pushed public safety into voters ’concerns, while the response to the coronavirus pandemic, once the main problem, has faded.

From the party’s moderate wing, Adams is vying with businessman Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia, a former head of the city’s sanitation department, whose campaign seems to be gaining momentum. All have proposed various reforms to improve policing, from better training to raising the recruitment age and imposing severe sanctions on bad officers. Still, they have maintained rhetorical support for the police force and its role in the city and have rejected progressive calls to reduce its resources.

The situation is very bad. The city has almost politically renounced any application of quality of life crimes

“Nothing works in our city without public safety, and for public safety, we need the police,” Yang said last month after the shooting in broad daylight of a four-year-old girl in Times Square.

Meanwhile, Garcia has dismissed the “funding” for not being serious and said, “Black lives are important, full stop … But we still need secure police.”

To his left is Maya Wiley, the former chief attorney for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has pledged to take $ 1 billion from the NYPD’s $ 6 billion budget and redirect it to social services. She has benefited from a number of recent supports, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Bronx congresswoman and progressive star.

“That’s the reality: we hire police officers to do the work of social workers,” he said Wednesday night in a final debate that was dominated by questions about public safety.

New York City public defender Jumaane Williams said he felt compelled to support his campaign after concluding that voters were given a false choice: between more police or more violence. “Police alone cannot (and have never provided) public safety,” Williams said.

Another progressive candidate, Dianne Morales, a former school official, wants to take $ 3 billion out of the police department and has gone so far as to claim that the police made the city more dangerous.

In an overwhelming Democrat city, the winner of Tuesday’s primaries will almost certainly make the November general election and take over America’s largest city at a dangerous time as he tries to recover from a pandemic that it has killed more than 33,000 residents and destroyed commercial space and social fabric.

Whoever wins, some analysts and observers have concluded that political winds have shifted toward security.

“The pendulum had come out toward the repeat movement, and I think it’s now receding,” said Richard Aborn, chairman of the Citizen Crimes Commission, a nonpartisan group that campaigns to improve police. “I think the repeat movement only thrived for the short time it had because crime was very low.”

Alexander Reichl, a professor at CUNY Queens College, agreed that the rise in crime had “reshaped” the mayor’s race and said, “It has taken the wind out of the sails of many of the progressives.”

Similar debates are taking place in other American cities also affected by the rise in crime. However, as Reichl noted, it was an exceptionally prominent issue for New Yorkers because of “the long shadow of the 1970s and the fear that the city would get out of control.”

According to NYPD statistics, shooting incidents have increased 64% this year through the second week of June compared to the same period a year ago, when the number also rose. Over a twelve-month period, shots have more than doubled compared to the previous twelve months. Murders increase by 13% and reported hate crimes increase by 117%.

It doesn’t capture the horror caused by allegations of Asian elderly women being assaulted on sidewalks and the decay of neighborhoods as graffiti and other illegalities take root.

“The situation is very bad. The city has almost politically given up any application of quality of life crimes, be it corner pests, illegal street vendors, drug dealers on the corner, all the emotionally affected people of the homeless population, ”William said Bratton.

Bratton led Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s police department when the falling crime rate paved the way for rising property prices and New York’s brand change as “America’s safest big city.” “.

Bratton returned in 2014 during the first three years of the De Blasio administration. Crime continued to fall even as it reduced aggressive “stop” tactics that sowed so much resentment in black and Hispanic communities during the Bloomberg era.

Bratton blamed criminal justice reforms passed by city and state politicians, including the removal of cash bail for many crimes, for much of the resurgence. He also lamented how the May 2020 Floyd assassination by Minneapolis police officers and other such incidents “broke” trust with communities of color.

“Everyone who ends up being elected mayor will have to be their first priority, because it looks like it will get worse before they get better,” he said.

For Williams, an advocate for the public, this analysis overlooks the role of the pandemic and the economic and social dislocation it has produced while closing down the courts. For those advocating only incremental reforms, he noted that the Minneapolis Police Department had undergone its own review prior to Floyd’s assassination.

“We need to re-imagine public safety in its truest form because what we’ve been doing is allowing the police to take on all that responsibility and it doesn’t work,” he said.

Adams’ story of political origin begins with police violence: when he was a teenager growing up in Queens, he says he and his brother were beaten in a basement by two white cops. This experience, he said, led him to a career in law enforcement to be able to change from within.

He retired to the rank of captain after 22 years of career during which he co-founded the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care to address racism within the force and establish better relations with the black community.

Adams ’campaign has shown some warts, especially with regard to his past fundraising practices and, more recently, questions about whether he really resides in New Jersey. (It’s not, he insists.) He also has an unusual tendency to speak in the third person.

But his reputation as a pragmatist and merchant has reassured the city’s business elite. He has also been well positioned for the change of mind of crime. Hours after the Times Square shooting, he held a press conference nearby.

“Gun violence,” he responded this week when asked what his first priority would be if he were elected mayor. “You’re seeing it over and over in every part of our city.” The toll, he explained, was human, but also related to the city’s economic recovery: “No tourist will come to this city if a three-year-old boy is shot in Times Square.”

Among other changes, Adams has proposed hiring more color agents and cutting red tape to send more police to neighborhoods. A bit controversial, he wants to reactivate the special “anti-crime units”, which were disbanded last year crime of arms. He has refused to disallow “stop-and-frisk,” as long as it is used properly, a point at which Wiley has repeatedly hammered it.

“He knows the police inside and out and the advantage he has as a reformer is that he will understand what can be done and will be in a very good position to reject the notion of what cannot be done,” Aborn said. the Citizen Crimes Commission.

But Victoria Davis, whose brother, Delrawn Small, was shot dead by an off-duty police officer in New York City in 2016 after a road rage incident, was not convinced. Davis accused Adams of “playing fear” and ridiculed him as “the favorite.” [candidate] for whites who want to be progressive, but do not know how ”.

In the South Bronx, a neighborhood that has seen the worst crime in New York City over the years, Ed Garcia Conde, a longtime resident and blogger, felt his neighbors were divided into generational lines.

“You have the older generation that wants to‘ send troops ’and do something about the rise of gun violence, and then you have the younger generation that wants to‘ spread ’the police,” Garcia Conde said. “It will be reduced to who goes out to vote.”