Adams: Community leader, deputy mayor to lead NYC crime task force

Mayor Eric Adams announced on Thursday the formation of a New York City gun violence task force co-chaired by a controversial Brooklyn violence interrupter and a deputy mayor, part of a multipronged effort to reduce persistent bloodshed and shootings.

At a news conference on the steps of City Hall, Adams said the overall goal is to coordinate city agencies to improve efforts at redirecting lives of people away from violence and into jobs while offering other forms of help. The mayor said that violence has slowed, with shootings and homicides down about 30%, but the actual reduction figure for the year-to-date is between 9% and 10%, according to police statistics.

For Adams, another goal is to get city district attorneys engaged in the process.

As co-chairs of the task force, Adams picked his old friend Andre T. Mitchell, who runs the Man Up! violence interrupter group in Brooklyn, and Sheena Wright, a deputy mayor for strategic initiatives.

Violence interrupters — clergy and community activists who try to persuade people not to resort to violence — have been increasingly relied upon by the NYPD in recent years.

“We have already committed financial resources to crisis management systems,” Adams said referring to the city support for violence interrupter groups such as Man Up.

He said a second priority "is about using the existing resources in our agencies. The agencies have not been connected to the number one crisis we are fighting.”

The aim, Adams said, would be to have crisis management teams in schools to de-escalate violence, housing agencies to provide homes for ex-cons and placement of violence interrupters in homeless shelters. He also touted some old ideas such as Saturday Night Lights basketball programs, job fairs and using social workers.

The selection of Mitchell, who some pundits referred to as a gun violence “czar,” raised eyebrows after a city Department of Investigation inquiry into Man Up! reportedly found in 2019 that some organization funds were put into Mitchell’s personal account. The investigation also found that Mitchell employed family members contrary to Man Up!’s contract with the city. But Adams brushed aside questions about the DOI finding, saying problems had been remedied.

"I have been with [Mitchell] for 30 years,” Adams said. “This is a 30-year relationship of a person who I have witnessed on the ground at shootings … on the ground getting people to disarm themselves.”

Joseph Giacalone, a former NYPD detective who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told Newsday the key question now is how the task force will measure success. At the news conference, Mitchell acknowledged he had no answer to how long it would take to see if the task force was working effectively

“To measure this is going to be difficult,” Giacalone said.

Chris Herrmann, who previously worked for the NYPD as a crime analyst, and now is an assistant professor at John Jay, said that at a minimum, the task force may be able to mend a fractured system in city law enforcement in the way information about shootings and violence is gathered.

“We have a big enough gun violence problem and it is not going to go away and we should have a central repository for all the information,” Herrmann said.

By Anthony M. DeStefano

tony.destefano@newsday.comtonynewsday

Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.