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Richard Hétu Special collaboration
These attacks added to an already scary weekly record of crimes. These included: a shooting in Times Square that injured three passers-by, including a 4-year-old girl; an attempted murder of a police officer responding to a call about another shooting; and at least six other gratuitous assaults in the metro.
This is enough to put a damper on the enthusiastic remarks of the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, on the return in force of his city after more than a year of pandemic. Yes, the American metropolis is regaining some momentum, but it is also returning to a problem – crime – whose importance had diminished, until last year, with the uninterrupted decline in the annual number of murders.
However, this problem now seems to dominate the race for mayor of New York, which should be decided on June 22 during the Democratic primary. And she could promote the election of a former black policeman who has announced his intention to carry his personal weapon if elected mayor.
It is Eric Adams, current president of the borough of Brooklyn, post without great power to which he was elected in 2014 after having served for six years in the Senate of the State of New York.
In early May, the former NYPD captain became the first of seven Democratic contenders for former presidential candidate Andrew Yang to beat him in a poll.
By offering its support, the New York Post summed up the attraction of Eric Adams last Monday: “Having been a police officer for 22 years, Adams understands the crisis. It offers a clear, firm and common sense way to clean our streets. ”
Beaten by police at 15
The choice of Donald Trump’s favorite tabloid confirmed the mistrust of the most progressive New Yorkers towards Eric Adams. It must be said that the 60-year-old man has an unusual political background. While New York was ruled by Republican mayors, namely Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, he belonged to the Grand Old Party.
PHOTO BRENDAN MCDERMID, ARCHIVES REUTERS
Eric Adams at a campaign rally in Brooklyn on May 11
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His relationship with the NYPD is also atypical. Raised in a modest Queens family with five siblings, he says he was arrested and beaten by police when he was 15. According to his testimony, the experience led him to want to change the NYPD from within. Which he did by becoming a police officer at the height of the crack epidemic and by founding, in the mid-1990s, an organization called 100 Black Officers in Law Enforcement Who Care. At the head of this group, he has multiplied press conferences, denouncing both police brutality and racial injustices.
This role earned him the outright loathing of many of his colleagues and NYPD superiors, who saw him as an advertising-hungry opportunist.
The irony is that Eric Adams presents himself today as the defender of the NYPD against certain rivals or activists of the Black Lives Matter movement who demand his definancing.
“When you start defining, hey the cop’s not around your corner anymore,” the candidate said in an interview with the magazine. New York . “That cop is no longer in your hall. This cop no longer stands outside when you leave your Broadway play. And I’ve never been to an event where people said we wanted fewer cops. Never. ”
Eric Adams delivers this speech in a city where the number of shootings increased by 97% and the number of murders by 45% in 2020. Last April, shooting incidents increased by 160% compared to the same month in 2020. As for the number of assaults in the metro, it has decreased, but this is misleading data, according to the Metropolitan Transport Agency, which notes a significant drop in the number of users since the start of the pandemic.
“Bring your gun to church”
Eric Adams is not the only Democratic candidate for mayor of New York with a focus on public safety. Andrew Yang, the leader in most polls, has also been hammering out this theme since the start of his campaign.
PHOTO ED JONES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Andrew Yang, candidate for mayor of New York, at a press briefing in Times Square the day after the May 8 shooting that left three people injured, including a 4-year-old girl
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So, in the aftermath of the most recent shootings in Times Square, he held a press conference at the same location, reiterating his opposition to police definancing.
“Nothing works without public safety. And for public safety, we need the police, ”he said.
But Eric Adams’ campaign is one that is taking height these days. It features a politician who presents himself as a “pragmatic progressive” and builds on his support from the working class and older minority voters.
Recognized for his discipline and dynamism, the man has not completely abandoned the cookie-cutter statements that made him known in the 1990s.
Thus, before announcing his intention to carry a weapon to the town hall, he had encouraged the police officers on leave to do the same in places of worship, in order to prevent massacres like the one that had just occurred in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. .
“If we have policemen standing in front of churches, then we can’t say it’s wrong for a policeman who is not on duty to be inside churches with a gun. If they leave those guns at home, I tell them now, stop leaving your gun at home. Do like me. Bring your gun to church. ”
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