Adams Says ‘We’re Doing Our Job’ But Need ‘Partners on Board’ to Lower Crime

By Reuvain Borchardt

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams said his administration is “doing our job” in fighting crime but the city won’t see its soaring crime rates drop until “we get all our partners on board.”

New York Police Department data through July 24 shows a 37% spike in serious crimes this year compared with the same period of 2021. Murder dropped 4% (from 258 to 247), but all other index crime categories soared, including a 19% rise in felony assault, 33% surge in burglary, 40% increase in robbery, 44% hike in auto theft and a 48% rise in grand larceny.

Adams, a former NYPD captain, won election in November 2021 after running a campaign focused on public safety, and he has been critical of the left-wing of his own Democratic Party on criminal-justice issues like defunding the police and bail reform.

At a press conference Monday, a Hamodia reporter asked the mayor, “When can we expect crime to drop? You’ve been in office seven months. You ran on a platform of lowering crime. When can we expect to see those decreases in crime?”

Adams replied, “When we get all our partners on board. We’re doing our job. And we also need the public on board. The public must really, as they have indicated in polling, that public safety is a major issue.

“We’re doing our job. NYPD’s taken thousands of guns off the streets. We are making arrests, [a] high level of arrests for violent crimes.

“You’re seeing that that which is in our span of control, we’re doing it to the maximum. Every area of public safety — from the disorderly motorcycles that were on our streets, to those who are carrying guns, to those who are creating predatory crimes — this Police Department has done an amazing job.

“Now, what we need to do: judges, lawmakers, prosecutors — [the] criminal justice system has several pieces to it. Every piece must work for us to ensure that this city is safe. We’re going to continue to push forward and do our job. But we do need help from every level of government, including our federal government. I met with the ATF head [Steven Dettlebach, director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] that was just recently appointed, and we’re going to continue to forge ahead.”

Adams’ comment about “judges, lawmakers, prosecutors” was apparently a reference to the 2019 state law eliminating cash bail for many crimes. Law-and-order advocates including Adams have blamed the bail reform for the rise in crime that began in 2020.

Amid criticisms of the bail reform, the law was partially rolled back multiple times, but Adams has called on Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul to convene a special session of the Legislature to enact further rollbacks.

Councilman Kalman Yeger, a conservative Democrat who represents Boro Park, Bensonhurst and Midwood, told Hamodia he agrees with the mayor that the city has done all it can to fight crime, and the fault lies elsewhere.

“Mayor Adams is right that we need legislators and judges to take crime seriously,” Yeger said. “When the police arrest a criminal who is immediately set back out on the streets by the courts, that is a failure of the state’s criminal justice system, not a failure of the NYPD. The police arrest the same people over and over again, only to see them back out on the streets. That revolving-door system needs to end.”

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rborchardt@hamodia.com