By Michael V. Cusenza
The Big Apple “continues to be the safest big city in America,” according to beleaguered Mayor Eric Adams.
Hizzoner was all smiles on Tuesday as he delivered third-quarter crime statistics, even as he’s facing a federal indictment and hemorrhaging close aides in the aftermath.
Overall citywide crime has been down for nine consecutive months, Adams said.
“We have been able to achieve this through [being] tough and smart on crime, both on our streets and in our subway system. Nothing personifies that more than yesterday, October 7th, when we commemorated the loss of lives of 1,200 individuals,” Adams said. “And we heard much noise about protests and disruption of our city. Commissioner [of Intelligence & Counterterrorism Rebecca] Weiner and her team did an amazing job on the intelligence, sharing the information, making sure that we were at the right places at the right time where people were able to protest peacefully and family members were able to commemorate the pain that came from that vicious attack from Hamas a year ago.”
Adams said the City cannot rest on its recent laurels.
“But we have also made sure we remain laser focus on one of the number one enemies in our city, handguns and guns and the use of guns. This administration has removed over 18,500 guns off our streets, out of our neighborhoods and out of our communities. We’ve arrested violent criminals. We’ve taken more than 29,000 close to 30,000 ghost cars off our streets and illegal mopeds off our streets. Something that New Yorkers have been talking about,” the mayor said. “These ghost cars and illegal mopeds, they have been a menace to our city. And former Deputy Mayor [for Public Safety Phil] Banks, what he has done in partnership with Commissioner [Jessica] Tisch over at the Department of Sanitation to zero in on ghost cars. We partnered with the governor to handle this at our tolling booths. But we now are doing an initiative where we go in through the night and finding these ghost cars, and we have been successful. Over 1,000 have been removed thus far.”
Again, Adams stressed that Gotham’s public-safety structure needs to keep moving.
“[W]e also looked at the menace of cannabis. This administration closed more than 1,100 illegal smoke shops,” Adams said. “And we put more cops on the streets and on our subways, and the results are clear. We’re also going after the root causes of crime to make sure this city and our communities are safer, investing in upstream solutions, education, affordable housing, and holiday school program and early intervention. You think about it, and I always want to remind us, August was one of the safest Augusts in recorded history for gun violence. Many people thought it was going to be a very dangerous summer, and the NYPD and our partners, both the crisis management teams and our patrol force responded and made sure we were able to successfully move through August without the violence that was expected in the area of gun violence.”
