Adams’s poll numbers have dived, which the optimistic politician took with aplomb. The honeymoon, filled with hope for a dynamic new mayor, is over. Six months into the job, Eric Adams, 61, is at a crucial juncture. His younger brother, Bernard, a former police officer who is the director of mayoral security with a salary of $1 a year, told me that their mom drilled into them that “you have to be your brother’s keeper” and watch out for the little guy who wasn’t getting a fair shake. You must ensure that he or she never reaches the point where they tarnish the shield, because one officer could destroy all the work that we are attempting to do.” Then Adams, who first drew public attention early in his career as a police officer who criticized police brutality, advised them: “You must be your brother’s keeper. He is pinioned from the right by Clarence Thomas and the other radical justices who issued the opinion overturning a century-old New York statute that limited the number of guns on the streets and by a Republican Party hellbent on arming Americans to the teeth.
He is pinioned from the left by the State Legislature, whose bail reform laws made it harder to keep criminals prone to violence in jail, and by district attorneys like Alvin Bragg of Manhattan, who deprioritized jail time even for certain low-level violent crimes, and by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others who are demonizing the police, deepening morale problems.
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the quarterback for the compromise gun bill that just became law, told me that Mayor Adams had given “energy and new life” to a stalled anti-gun violence movement.īut it is tough going for Adams. “The clock is ticking, every day, every minute towards another hour of death.” “It’s ‘High Noon’ in America,” Adams warned in testimony before Congress in favor of stronger gun laws.
But other crimes have risen - overall crime is up nearly 38 percent - and shocking crimes like the shooting of the young mom and attacks on the subway have left New Yorkers fearful.Īdams has worked to increase patrols on subways and has restarted a special anti-gun unit to combat gun crimes, specifically going after people who are most frequently the perpetrators of violence. The Police Department even announced on Thursday that it had made more gun arrests this past quarter than in any since 1995. Now the fight is his.Īfter a steady rise since the start of the pandemic, murders and shootings in the first sixth months of the year were down 10 percent and 12 percent in New York City compared with last year, according to police figures. It was Adams’s response to that sense of danger, his demand that the city support the police in the fight against crime, that won him election last year. Coming out of Covid, it feels as though bad spirits have been unleashed all across the country. I have covered gun violence and possible remedies for decades, and it seems we’re losing this battle. He shot her and ran, leaving the baby on the street, and was arrested two days later. In a couple of days, the police would say that this beautiful young woman, a doting mother of two, had been lured to the playground by her abusive ex, who told her he had some things for their baby daughter. She had filed a domestic violence report against him. It was probably the baby’s father who was the shooter, he said. The woman was 20 and her name was Azsia Johnson. Standing next to a school playground, John Miller, the storied deputy police commissioner, briefed the mayor sotto voce about the 40-caliber bullet casing, powder burns and a young man in a black hoodie shooting at point-blank range, execution-style.
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