By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been in office for close to a year now. On Sunday, he offered a brazen assessment of his leadership and accomplishments, despite a new surge in COVID-19 cases and a record-high number of transit murders. “New York City’s not coming back, New York City’s back,” Adams, 62, declared on Pix11’s “Pix on Politics.” In the interview, Adams touted his handling of the pandemic, and showed off NYPD statistics which show that crime in the transit system has declined by 20 percent over the 28 days before Dec. 11, compared to the same time last year. He told host Dan Mannarino that the improvement is due to the increased police presence in the subway systems.
As reported by the NY Post, Hizzoner neglected to mention that this year is setting records for the number of subway homicides – the highest since at least 1997 when the NYPD started recording the data. Mayor Adams brushed off concerns about crime, saying the publicperception of rampant crime is still lingering from previous incidents, and will take time to catch up with reality. “We know it would be awhile before people go from how they felt to how they feel,” said Adams, a Democrat. Adams added that, “We saw double digit decreases in shootings and homicides” recently. He took a jab at City Hall press corps, accusing local reporters of focusing on crime, instead of on the city’s recovery. “If the press points out what I can do better, isn’t it only fair that I point out what the industry can do better?” he said during the interview with Pix11.
He also boasted about progress in overcoming the pandemic, even though NY hospitals are currently overwhelmed in fighting a “tripledemic” of the flu, COVID and RSV while simultaneously battling staffing shortages and financial woes. “We managed COVID, got it under control,” Adams said enthusiastically.
The rosy assessment continued, in relation to the rush of illegal migrants being bussed into the city from the border states. “The asylum-seeker problem that was really at a crisis level, we brought it under control,” Adams asserted. As per the Post, the problem is only about to get worse. Next week, a Trump-era immigration order ends, leaving City Hall officials scrambling to get ready for a new surge of migrants. Adams said his office is communicating regularly with the White House in a bid to get federal funds to cover the estimated $1 billion NYC cost of sheltering the asylum seekers.
As per the Post, the Mayor also defended his plan to involuntarily commit homeless mentally ill New Yorkers to hospitals, saying the decision would be led by “mental-health professionals, not police officers.” He added, “We cannot allow people in an inhumane way to live on our streets, ignore them, act like it doesn’t exist.” Adams applauded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s new $9 million plan to connect homeless people with assistance in housing, mentalhealth and substance abuse. “We took a bold step … and now the chorus is joining us, he’s complementing our plan,” the mayor said. “This is an amazing moment for our city, we took a bold step, refused to punt the ball, and you’re seeing other entities saying how do we step up.”
Looking towards the new year, Adams said that in 2023 he will be prioritizing minimizing crime, attracting businesses to the Big Apple and building more affordable housing. He denied reports that suggested that he has current aspiration for higher office.