Transcript: Mayor Eric Adams Appears on WCBS 2

June 30, 2022

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Mayor Eric Adams: The biggest mistake people make when it deals with public safety is that they don't realize bad guys read the papers also. And so when the bad guys are picking up the papers and reading all of these things that we're doing of where some are calling for disbanding the Police Department, some are calling for not prosecuting gun crimes. The bad guys are saying to themselves, "Hey, here's some real opportunities here."

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Mayor Adams: We have to look at the anatomy of violence. And if you look at the 30 precincts where 80% of the violence is coming from, this is what you're going to find. You're going to find a failing school system. You're going to find the largest amount of undiagnosed mental health issues, undiagnosed of learning disabilities. You're going to even find that there are places where you didn't have a large number of vaccines. You're going to find all of the largest number of unhealthy foods, largest number of high school dropouts being locked up during the pandemic. All of a sudden, the close down was lifted. Now you are out in the street. You're going to see that violence that has been penned up for a long time.

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Mayor Adams: You have the cops and the good people of this city are all fighting against everyone else. It is as though we don't realize that there are innocent New Yorkers in this city that are doing the right thing. And no one is saying is speaking on their behalf and I'm not going to do that.

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