Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls In For Live Interview On 1010 Wins’ “Morning Drive”

January 30, 2024

Susan Richard: The City Council to vote today on whether to override Mayor Adams' veto of the How Many Stops Act. This is the bill that requires city cops to document not only Level 3 police stops, but also Levels 1 and 2. Mayor Adams, now joining us live this morning on 1010 WINS to talk more about this. Thank you so much for being here. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Good to be on with you. 

Richard: Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has said that she has the votes to override your veto. So, is this a fait accompli, or has anything changed since she said that? 

Mayor Adams: Well, I believe that some of the City Council members who went on a ride along with us really saw the operationalizing of this bill and why I overrode the veto. And now it's, you know, I did my job. I vetoed a bill that I thought would impact public safety in the city, I took councilmembers out. And now it's up to the council to deliberate and make a determination on how they're going to move forward. 

If the bill, for whatever reason they do override the veto, I'm hoping during the time before the implementation of the actual law that we can sit down and fix the one aspect of the bill that is really troublesome to me and other law enforcement experts. So, I agree with the concept of the bill. It's just the Level 1 interactions that I am troubled about. 

Richard: All right. So currently, the law in New York only requires cops to document Level 3 stops, right? Consisting of encounters when they're legally authorized to detain somebody for reasonable suspicion of criminality. We're getting a little in the weeds here, but I think that this is important. You were a cop. The bill drops this to Level 1. Give us an education here. What's a Level 2, and is that a possible compromise? 

Mayor Adams: Well, actually, the bill is going to call for Level 2's and Level 3's and 4's, and we agree with that. That's a further extension of transparency. I support the concept of that. 

But a Level 1 stop, this is something like if your parent, your mom, your dad is suffering from dementia and you call the police, the police get a photo of that person and walks through the streets to try to find your mom or dad. 

Each person that they ask, did you see this person, that police officer must now guess the age of that person, the gender of that person, the ethnicity of that person and write the reason why did they stop them or why did they interact with them. 

That is just duplicative. We have video cameras already. We should maximize our time of police officers on fighting [for] public safety and really protecting the people of the City of New York. And that is the troublesome part. 

We have 8.5 million 911/311 calls to the Police Department. Can you imagine spending even a minute, as some say, on each one of those interactions? That's 8.5 million minutes that we are using for something that I think we should not be doing at this time. 

Let's continue our success of bringing down crime, making this the safest big city in America, and our police should be on patrol not doing paperwork and documentation. 

Richard: All right. Well, the public advocate and several others have accused you of engaging in a misinformation campaign. They say that you're exaggerating. This only takes a couple of seconds. They can do it on their cell phone. I think the average New Yorker is like, who's telling the truth? Do you understand how like from a listener's perspective, they're like, what is going on here? You know, what would you say to that? 

Mayor Adams: And I can understand, and hear me clearly. Each stop, each interaction, let's say it takes a minute. I don't disagree with the public advocate and others. Let's say it takes a minute, according to what they're saying. Multiply those minutes by 8.5 million. 

So, what they're not clearly understanding and that's why I took them on a ride along is because of policing actions is judged in seconds. When you judge how long it takes the police to respond to a call of service or any action, you judge that in seconds, because seconds matter in public safety. 

It's a job that I did for 22 years. I know the difference in getting somewhere. One minute difference in response time is a difference between life and death. You can't be dismissive of each second we take away from public safety, it’s a second we’re taking away from saving a life from police responding like they're supposed to. 

So, I don't disagree with them. If you're dealing with just one person, no, that's not a lot of time. But when you multiply that by 8.5 million interactions, that's a different scenario. 

Richard: So, okay. So, all this arguing may be moot if the override happens. So, what if it does happen? What happens next? Can you go back to the drawing board with the City Council and try to change it or what? 

Mayor Adams: There's room for a compromise to get the public safety and justice and oversight we're looking for. You don't have to implement the bill until July. I say, if you're going to override my veto, let's use that moment of time to sit down and let's address just one aspect of the bill. 

I think conceptually, the City Council's heart was in the right place, but in order to operationalize this, we have to address the volume of interactions that we're now asking police officers to document. 

So, I say, let's spend this time of getting this bill right. Let's amend it if you override it so that we can make sure we can get the public safety and justice that New Yorkers want and that the City Council conceptually was attempting to find. 

Richard: I want to ask you for a second about the ride along that eight councilmembers took you up on in the Harlem and the Bronx. You called it a brilliant idea of governance, that is, to give lawmakers full knowledge of what is on the ground. 

Some were complaining that it was just in certain districts, you didn't let them do it in their own districts. If going forward, you know, you seem to think that this is a good thing going forward, to let council people see what is happening on the ground with the police or other agencies. But shouldn't they be doing it in their own districts? 

Mayor Adams: Yes, and they were allowed. Selvena Brooks Powers was in Rockaway. She did hers in Rockaway. Councilman Salamanca wanted to do his in the Bronx, and we said, you can do yours in the Bronx. We were willing... Councilwoman Hudson, she wanted to do in Brooklyn, her district, her precinct area. We fully support that. 

The purpose of everyone coming together in the beginning is because we wanted to do a presentation at the 28 Precinct to show them the paperwork that is being done already and what this bill will have them do in addition. And then after they were given that instruction, they will go out to their various commands. 

And so we were not denying anyone from doing it wherever they wanted to do it. We wanted to give them the orientation in the beginning. And so I'm not quite sure why they felt that not being able to do it in their command was something that we were going to prevent. 

And let's keep this in mind. The bills that City Council put into law, those bills are going to impact the entire city. So, you may be in a district where there's no or little police interaction every day. You're not going to see the full scope of your action if you don't see how it's going to impact the entire city, not just your council-matic district. 

Richard: So, beyond this bill, what else can you and the NYPD or other departments do to increase transparency and accountability, in general? 

Mayor Adams: Well, we're doing it now, which is amazing. A perfect example of that was to stop between Councilman Salaam and the New York City police officers who stopped him for tinted windows. 

I was just extremely pleased. Of all of my work of calling for transparency, calling for police community interaction, I saw it play out in the village of Harlem. That officer approached the car. He was extremely courteous. He communicated with the councilperson. The councilperson was professional. They both deescalated the tension that comes from a police stop. 

People must know that a police stop, a vehicle stop is one of the most dangerous jobs a police officer can do, and it's one of the most stressful experiences that a civilian can have by having police lights behind their car. 

I think both of them showed the level of discipline and professionalism, and that shows that we've come a long way in policing in the city because that is not what I saw in the beginning of my policing career. 

And I'm pleased that we've made great strides and we can continue to do so. We should not erode it with a bill that's going to have officers guessing the gender and the sex and of trying to have more inquiries with our civilians than what is needed. 

Richard: All right. We do want to note that in the Yusef Salaam situation that both sides were taking heat. Some were accusing him of using his position to get out of a ticket, and he criticized the police officer for not telling him why he was being stopped. But that's like a whole other topic of conversation. 

Mayor Adams, the vote is this afternoon. We're all going to be watching. And we appreciate you taking time with us this morning on 1010 WINS. 

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Great speaking with you and the audience.