Rosanna Scotto: All right. Thank you so much, Inez. Every day it seems we're hearing about another violent attack in our city. On the streets, in the transit system, crimes are happening everywhere, putting many of us on edge and making us feel more vulnerable than ever.
Bianca Peters: Mayor Eric Adams has pledged to crack down on crime, adding extra patrols in the subways. That is where prime is spiking. Now, just yesterday, another attack, this one by a man carrying a sword. Many New Yorkers say they just don't feel safe, and they've grown increasingly frustrated with what is happening around them. On top of that, we do have a migrant crisis that has overwhelmed our shelters. They have strained our resources and is expected to cost the city 1 billion dollars.
Scotto : Joining us right now to discuss these issues, New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Nice to have you back on Good Day New York.
Mayor Eric Adams : Good morning. Great to be back. Great seeing you yesterday out at the Alfred E. Smith dinner as well.
Scotto: Yes. Thank you so much, mayor. Let's talk about crime. We can talk semantics on crime, but lately you've been saying, and I've heard you say it too, at some charity events, that it's the perception of crime. It's not as bad as everybody thinks it is, but crime is up. August was terrible in New York City. I think there were over 783 attacks on people on the subway, the workers there. The numbers are up. Why does it seem like you're blaming the media for the perception of crime?
Mayor Adams: No, it's about how do we feel? This is what I learned in my early days of policing. If I just throw the stats at the public, murders are down, shootings are down, 47 percent increase in arrests in our subway system. We're actually down in index crime from compared to 2019, 2018, 2017. Those are the numbers. But how do we feel? New Yorkers must feel safe, and we must deal with the actual crimes at the same time. That's what I'm saying, that until New Yorkers are feeling safe, we are not going to be successful.
Scotto: I totally agree with you because we walk around the streets of New York, and I'm a diehard New Yorker just like you. You're just waiting. You feel like there's ticking time bombs everywhere you look and you don't know if you're going to be the next one, because it's not just guns anymore, Mayor Adams. It's knives now too. Pushing, random pushings from behind on the streets and in the subways.
Mayor Adams: That is exactly what I am saying. Part of that, we could equate to the small number of people who are dealing with mental health issues. If you look at some of the assaults, the pushes, the stabbings, and then you look at the common denominator. There's a mental health crisis on our streets, and we have to address that.
Scotto: I know, but how... We could use that excuse, and some of them are unhinged, but everybody's unhinged?
Mayor Adams: I understand that. But it seems like a basic argument nowadays turns into a fight on the subway tracks and innocent people fall to the tracks. That is the combination we must use. I say this all the time, when you talk about public safety, there are many rivers we have to dam each river. The mental health issue in our city is one of them. You see it. You see people talking to themselves on the subway system, walking up and down the streets yelling. That is why it's imperative we strengthen Kendra’s Law, and that's one of the things we're going to call for when Albany returns. It's the combination of ensuring that we deal with the actual violence, but also people must feel safe in the City of New York.
Peters: Then mayor, it is hard to feel safe, because when we look at the numbers, 22 people murdered on the subway in just two years, eight people this year. That's not perception, those are just facts. And they matter to people riding the subway. I rode the subway yesterday, and it's same thing. I haven't put my AirPods in for over a year, because I feel like I need to be very much aware. That's a quality of life issue. But I do want to talk about it, because you mentioned Albany two months ago. You said that New York City was called the laughing stock of our country because certain parts of our criminal justice system had abandoned our public safety apparatus. This has to do with Albany. Do you still believe that now, and what steps can we take to reel this back in?
Mayor Adams: Well, first, I think that you were right about not having your iPods in, not focusing on our phone. And I say yes to that, I do the same. And we put out a video and information telling people about being aware of what's around them and what's taking place, and I encourage New Yorkers to do that.
And yes, we do need a partnership from Albany. This weekend, we are bringing together those who criticize our policies, those who believe our policies. We're having a two day summit to look at our criminal justice system from those who are critics to those who support. The bottle necking of our system, that system is allowing people who are violent to remain on our streets far too long after being found guilty, not sentencing, not making sure they're off our streets. And we're looking at the entire parts of our criminal justice system. This is going to be an important conference we're having for two days over the weekend.
Peters: Well, we definitely hope that there are some concrete... Just any kind of change coming from that. Do you want to talk about the migrant issue? Because El Paso has sent more than 215 buses, that's more than 11,000 migrants to New York City. That is triple what Governor Abbott has sent. But you have the choice words for Governor Abbott. Do you have choice words for the mayor of El Paso, the city manager of El Paso, as to stop sending buses here? Because in your own words, "This is unsustainable."
Mayor Adams: Without a doubt, it is unsustainable. And I stated that two weeks ago, I called on the president to do a decompression strategy. We believe that strategy is working. We were seeing anywhere from nine to ten buses in the city. We saw two in the last few days. We received a call from El Paso, the mayor stated that he would no longer send buses here to New York due to that decompression strategy.
I think the team responded to this crisis. I have to take my hat off to the interagency partnership. We were prepared. We did not panic. And we sent a very clear message of what we needed from the federal government, what we had to do here in the city. And I think that we really responded to this crisis the same way we responded to COVID and other crises in this city.
Scotto : I know, but mayor, really, you've been begging the president, you've been begging the feds for money. We're at a stretching point. New York City seems like we can't afford this. What are we going to do? Because how much begging can you possibly do?
Mayor Adams: And I'm glad you pointed that out, Rosanna, because yes, we are going to ask for what we need, like we did, but we are also going to respond on the ground, because we've learned so often that New York and New Yorkers have to depend on themselves. And so, as we move through to tell the federal government what we needed, as we continue to communicate with the El Paso mayor, we were doing what we had to do here. There were no migrant or asylum seeker children sleeping on our streets because we built out the right infrastructure and we responded.
Scotto : So those tents, mayor, why do you think there are only five people in those tents?
Mayor Adams: I'm sorry?
Scotto : Why do you think there are only five people in those tents that you built? It was a pretty expensive tent.
Mayor Adams: Well, we had an unpredictable governor, unpredictable situation coming out of El Paso. It's like, why does one have car insurance? They don't hope for an accident, but they better be prepared for one. And I take my hat off to this administration and the team — to realizing that we had an unpredictable situation that could have brought us 100,000 people into our city. We better be prepared and that's exactly what we did.
Scotto : I know, but what happens to the other people in the homeless shelters? Because there seems to be people who live here, working poor, can't afford an apartment here, and they're saying the migrants are getting treated better than they are. We got this gorgeous tent on Randall's Island where they have video games, somebody doing their laundry.
Mayor Adams: Rosanna, think about this for a moment. A few weeks ago, people were complaining that people who were in the HERRCs, as we call them, as you just said a tent, they said that they were treated unfairly.
Now this week, people are saying those who are in actual shelters are being treated unfairly. You know New Yorkers, no one is getting any better treatment than the other. We are giving our moral and legal obligations, and all New Yorkers are going to be treated fairly.
And when you do these things, you're going to get people that are going to look and point fingers. But this is the way you treat people in a humane, dignified manner. We're leading a way in this country on how we take care of people who are in need in this city.
Scotto : Mayor, before you go, we got a big election coming up in about 18 days. The polls are getting very, very tight between Lee Zeldin and Governor Hochul. Could you work with Lee Zeldin, who is very, very tough, or at least promises to be very tough on crime?
Mayor Adams: Governor Hochul is my choice for governor. I look forward to working with her. We have done some great things together and I look forward to continue to do those things. She has been a great partner in Albany and I need a strong voice there.
Peters: We also need some housing because we got a housing crisis. Quickly, just talk about the Queens building project in Astoria.
Mayor Adams: Very important project. I say over and over again, I need my City Council people to understand, as they advocate for affordable housing, they can't say no in their districts. This is a great project in Astoria that's going to bring affordable units. Let's get it done. Let's build it.
Scotto: Mayor Adams, thank you very much for coming on.
Mayor Adams: Thank you.
Scotto: Good day, New York. We appreciate you coming here.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care.
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