New York City Mayor Eric Adams has vowed to crack down on rising crime in the Big Apple, but the results have been mixed a year into his first term in office.
Democratic and police leaders have celebrated as shooting and murder numbers have dropped, but other crimes continue to rise as several high-profile crimes have critics calling for more to be done.
“He’s the boss because the responsibility is his,” said Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. However, “it’s not exclusively him,” Lehman told Fox News Digital in a recent interview after Adams told a local publication that he gave himself a B+ grade in his first year in office.
“From an executive agency perspective, I think the Albany Democrats can be blamed. I think the city council can be blamed, they really paralyze it,” she added. “There are other politicians involved.”
Adams was sworn in as mayor in 2022, with crime on the rise during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure and amid scrutiny over statewide criminal justice reforms that critics say have resulted in dangerous criminals going free. .
New York City Mayor Eric Adams with Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette make an announcement regarding safety for the 77th Street Thanksgiving Day Parade.
(Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Adams and the NYPD recently touted that shootings were down 17% in 2022 and murders were down 11% compared to 2021 data. As those violent crimes declined, however, robberies continued in the city. , larceny, aggravated assault, grand theft, and other crimes, leading to an increase in felony crime by 22% compared to 2021.
“I wanted to go after violent crime in general, but specifically homicides, shootings, gun crimes — those crimes terrified our city,” Adams told The City news site last month.
“People felt that every time they [they] I heard a shot, or heard someone else was shot, it was traumatic.”
The mayor added that he would give himself a “solid B+” grade for the work he has done in his first year, according to The City.
Adams’ workload is enormous in reducing serious crime, experts said, adding that the mayor still has a long way to go before New York hits pre-pandemic crime levels.
“All of the above,” Lehman said when asked what are the biggest crime challenges facing Adams this year.
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The year 2020 was a tremendously violent year for New York, as well as many areas across the country, with murders and shootings soaring by 44% and 97%, respectively.
It was also a historically bloody year for the entire country. Murders spiked in 2020 as COVID-19 lockdowns upended daily life, and protests and riots swept the nation following the killing of George Floyd during an interaction with Minneapolis police. Murders increased nearly 30% in 2020 compared to the previous year, marking the largest single-year increase in murders since the FBI began tracking such crimes.
The 2020 murder spike has been blamed on a handful of variables, according to experts who previously spoke to Fox News Digital, including: anti-police rhetoric voiced by Black Lives Matter and defunding police advocates; the pandemic; a culture of lawlessness promoted by liberal district attorneys; and the “Ferguson effect”: when the police back down, violent crime increases.
Protesters hold a sign reading “Defund Police” during a protest over the death of a black man, Daniel Prude, after police pulled a spit hood over his head during an arrest on March 23, in Rochester, New York, on September 6. 2020.
(REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)
The spike in murders and shootings in New York City that year occurred under the de Blasio administration and at a time when criminal justice reforms were being implemented. Bail reform, in particular, went into effect in 2020 and eliminated cash bail options for most non-violent felonies and misdemeanors. Adams has criticized bail reform for failing to protect victims and creating a revolving door of criminals who are detained by police only to be released onto the streets soon after.
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Adams is a former traffic officer who later rose through the ranks in the NYPD to captain before being elected Brooklyn borough president and later city mayor. He promised on the campaign trail to crack down on crime, saying in July 2021 that New York had “we raise our handsand “surrendered our city” to violence.
“It is time that we make sure that our city is for the working class, the common people,” he said at the time.
Jillian Snider, a retired NYPD officer and current John Jay adjunct professor, said Adams’ year in office “isn’t that long” when assessing how he handled crime, noting that he took office “in a really bad moment in history.”
“It came after COVID, the crimes are a disaster, unemployment increased. And we can’t blame him for that,” Snider told Fox News Digital. “But I think he came in trying to come up with new ideas, but he didn’t really. He was recycling things from the past.”
NYPD officers respond to the scene of a shooting that left multiple people injured in the Flatbush neighborhood of the Borough of Brooklyn in 2021 in New York City.
(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Snider singled out the public safety team working to get illegal guns off the street, saying it was an “old model anti-crime” that Adams brought in and “threw a uniform at them.” She said bringing back the plainclothes unit that de Blasio eliminated at the height of the “Defund the Police” movement was “smart” but not “new.”
When asked about his campaign promises to drop the hammer on crime, Lehman said Adams is headed in the “right direction” but needs to “go much further” and is “not where he needs to be.” .
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Among the issues Lehman said Adams must address is the increasing rate of police stopping and arresting people suspected of breaking the law. He praised Adams for reversing a de Blasio-era decision that eliminated the NYPD’s plain clothes unit and beefed up enforcement within a subway system that has been rocked by repeated violent crimes that have left some in fear. new yorkers.
He also noted that Adams advocated for more mental health resources; and he was not quick to support closing the city’s Rikers Island detention center.
Turnstiles at the Yankee Stadium subway station.
(Peter Gerber)
Snider said Adams is working on his campaign promises to make the subway system safer and made good on his promise to bring back the plainclothes crime unit.
“I’m not saying I’ve successfully executed that plan yet,” Snider said of Adams making the subway safer, but said a drop in crime is already evident and ridership is rising.
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Snider, however, takes issue with Adams’ relationship with the NYPD, calling it too big and him too involved, which she says is ultimately hurting the NYPD.
“I feel like police commissioners and mayors in the past, they’ve always had a very functional relationship. And that the police commissioner, obviously appointed by the mayor, will take some guidance and suggestions. But I don’t even feel like that’s where is now,” said Snider, who is also the policy director for R Street’s Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties team.
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Snider said that even though Adams has a strong leader in NYPD Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell and is regaining the job of deputy mayor for public safety for the first time since the 1990s, Adams is “too involved “.
Keechant Sewell, Police Commissioner for the New York City Police Department, speaks during a news conference in New York, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022.
(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I feel like he just dictates how he wants things done and expects her to execute and deploy what he says. And I don’t think he’s giving her a chance to come up with some ideas of her own. He takes credit for everything.”
Snider said it appears Commissioner Sewell is “left out” during the press conference, even though the community wants to hear from her.
Snider argued that the mayor’s involvement with the NYPD is “hurting” the department, because officers question how much power Sewell has despite generally liking him as a leader.
Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a press conference with Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez at the district attorney’s office.
(Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“I also think for cops, it’s one thing, but the community when they’re watching TV, and they just see a police commissioner standing to the side and a mayor talking all the time. I think that makes the community… who doesn’t really understand the nuances of mayor, vice mayor, police commissioner, I don’t think most people understand all of that. Most likely they think he’s the police commissioner and mayor,” he said Snider.
Fox News Digital reached out to the mayor’s office for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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“I’m very excited for 2023,” Adams told The City last month. “We have some good stuff in the works.”
“I love doing my job,” he added.
