Adams calls 911, visits hurt cop on 1st day as NYC mayor
New York City Mayor Eric Adams calls 911 while keeping his eye on a fight in the street while waiting for the subway to City Hall on Saturday. Credit: AP/Seth Wenig
Eric Adams, an ex-NYPD cop turned politician, was inaugurated just after midnight Saturday as New York City’s 110th mayor, promising to combat crime and help the city recover from the coronavirus pandemic without future shutdowns.
Adams, 61, took the oath of office after the ball dropped at the New Year’s Eve festivities in Times Square, holding up a framed photo of his mother, who is deceased, as he swore on a family Bible.
"New York is back," he said as he left the stage in Times Square.
But it’s not back yet to what it was before the pandemic.
Unemployment is double the rest of the country’s, asking rents for office space are down and vacancies up, and certain major crime rates, including for homicides and shootings, have risen to levels unseen in years, a trend seen nationally. And then there is the surge in COVID-19 via the omicron variant.
Helping New York recover, and being a booster for the NYPD, took center stage on the first day of Adams’ mayoralty, succeeding fellow Democrat Bill de Blasio, who was term-limited.
Early Saturday, Adams rode the subway to City Hall and called 911 to report a fight in progress. Then he went to a hospital to visit an NYPD cop from Suffolk County who was grazed by a stray bullet as he napped between shifts in Harlem. And midafternoon, he visited the 103rd Precinct in Jamaica, Queens, where he says he was beaten by cops as a 15-year-old arrested on suspicion of trespassing.
"This experience here had a major impact on me becoming a police officer" he said, adding that the visit recalled trauma, and "PTSD is real."
Adams said he would empower cops to feel he has their "back" to enforce against quality-of-life crimes but he said "no" when asked if that meant more arrests. He also said, "Officers also need better protection during protests but can’t be abusive."
Regarding the pandemic, Adams said, "We’re not doing what the Southern states are doing, which is totally disregarding COVID."
Still, he said, "We can’t close down our city every time there’s a new variant. …COVID won’t control us. We’re not going to live in fear."
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
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