New York City Mayor Eric Adams will soon conclude his first full month in office, which has been marked with spiking violence and crimes, NYPD officers killed in the line of duty and residents saying fear is spreading in the city.
New York Republicans are hoping the new mayor will turn the city around after it was led by former Mayor Bill de Blasio for two terms.
“On the whole, we should be happy to have a mayor who’s finally saying enough is enough on illegal guns and murders on our streets,” Republican Minority Leader of the New York City Council Joe Borelli told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
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Screen shot of Republican Minority Leader of the New York City Council Joe Borelli.
(Fox News)
Adams campaigned on a tough on crime platform, and unveiled a plan Monday to combat gun crimes and violence in the city, including by bringing back the NYPD’s plainclothes anti-crime unit after it was dismantled under de Blasio’s administration amid the defund the police movement. Anti-violence teams of police will also be deployed to 30 precincts where 80% of violence has occurred and an expansion of the Gun Violence Suppression Division.
Borelli said that Adams unveiling the plan “in the first two and a half, three weeks is pretty significant.” Noting that the mayor is indicating he knows he will “be judged on public safety.”
The number of shooting victims in the city has increased by more than 22% so far this month when compared to the same time period last year. One rookie NYPD officer was shot dead this month, another succumbed to his shooting injuries this week, three other officers were left injured by shootings, while other New Yorkers, including an 11-month-old girl in the Bronx, have been shot.
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Borelli told Fox that the issues Adams is juggling comes down “entirely [to Adams] picking up the pieces” left by the de Blasio administration.
“If he … and I can go back to fighting over plastic straws or whatever we traditionally battle over, the city will be in a better place,” Borelli said.
Adams and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have laid much of the blame for the “crisis with guns” on lack of gun control laws and “illegal guns” flowing into the city.
The Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald, however, told Fox News Digital earlier this week that’s not the case.
“We have a crisis of family breakdown and a crisis of law enforcement, not a crisis of guns. The per capita rate of gun possession in New York is much lower than in many other parts of the country that have zero drive-by shootings,” she said Monday.
This week, Adams faced another trial: This time with the NYPD. He came under fire from rank-and-file NYPD cops and the department’s biggest police union for comments that it makes “no sense” that more than 30% of NYPD officers don’t live in the city. The mayor did not address cost of living issues and pay during his remarks.
NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 23: New York City police officers and firemen stand at attention as they await the remains of Police Officer Jason Rivera to be brought to the funeral home on January 23, 2022 in New York City. Rivera and fellow Officer Wilbert Mora were shot Friday night while responding to a domestic violence call between a woman and her adult son. Mora remains hospitalized.
(Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
“We can’t talk about residency without talking about police officers’ pay and the cost of living in this city,” a Police Benevolent Association spokesman told the New York Post following Adams’ comments.
“Not everyone wants to live in Brownsville — which still costs half a million for a house,” one police source told the New York Post. “I’d rather put my balls in a Vise-Grip.”
Republican New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis told Fox News Digital that she hopes the Adams administration will give cops the tools they need to do their jobs, adding that a proposal NYPD cops be city residents “would make it even harder to recruit and retain officers.”
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“A lot of police officers live outside of New York City because they can’t afford to live here with their families on what the department pays them,” Malliotakis told Fox. “There are already requirements to ensure officers live within New York City or its six neighboring counties, and preference is given to NYPD applicants who reside in the city.
Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from New York, speaks during a Select Subcommittee On Coronavirus Crisis hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. Photographer: Susan Walsh/AP Photo/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(Susan Walsh/AP Photo/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“This proposal would make it even harder to recruit and retain officers at a time when we just saw record retirements and resignations due to anti-police rhetoric and policies that came out of City Hall.”
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Malliotakis also named de Blasio in her remarks, pointing to him defunding the police in 2020 as an opportunity for Adams.
“I hope the mayor focuses on giving our officers the tools they need to do their job, restore the funding cut by de Blasio and repeal the qualified immunity provision that has led to great apathy among the rank and file,” she said.
Adams said he wants residency requirements only for new recruits, but that Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell is working on an upcoming plan encouraging all active-duty police members to live in the city.
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The mayor has called on the federal government and state leaders to assist with gun crimes in the city and will meet with President Biden in New York City on Feb. 3 to discuss gun policies and how to combat crime.
“I want to commend the New York City Police Department, the Port Authority. We’re doing our job. It’s time for the federal government and our partners in all over this country to help us keep New Yorkers safe,” Adams said Thursday.
