Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on Fox News’ “The Story With Martha Maccallum”

July 29, 2025

Martha MacCallum: And with that, we bring in New York City Mayor, Eric Adams. Mayor Adams, obviously just an absolutely tragic night for New York City. And the pain of this is just beginning to be felt for these four families who woke up yesterday morning thinking it was a normal day and now their lives are changed forever. Sir, is there any new information that you have about what happened last night?

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. I really want to thank the station for highlighting how painful this is for our city and the law enforcement family. As a former law enforcement officer, there's some personal feelings that I am going through with the loss of this young officer. 

And we have discovered through our investigation as this continues to unravel that the weapon that was used, part of the weapons was purchased by an associate of the perpetrator. And he also purchased the firearm that was found in the car by using a carry permit that he received in Nevada. We're still looking into other aspects. Two teams of detectives are going to Las Vegas. One will be conducting a search warrant of his home. The other is going to do further investigation into the firearms.

MacCallum: When you say part of the weapon was purchased by an associate, which part? What do you mean? And is there any indication that he had an accomplice in this or that that person had any idea what his intentions were?

Mayor Adams: When you have an assault rifle of that sort, there are parts, there are lower parts of the body, there are upper parts, there are different parts that assemble the gun. The lower part we are finding out was purchased by an associate. It is undetermined at this time if he played any role at all in planning or carrying out this action. That is what the investigation would reveal. We are now attempting to identify him and question him at this time.

MacCallum: Do you have any idea if that black BMW that he double parked was his vehicle? Was it registered to him?

Mayor Adams: We're still investigating that. We're less than 24 hours from this incident. Our detectives are investigating every aspect to really put together the pieces of this puzzle and find out exactly if it was his vehicle or if it belonged to someone else.

MacCallum: You know, mayor, just today, all of us work in the city. We have family members who work in the city. Everyone is unsettled by this, beside the fact that we are grieving for these families because in these individuals, we all see whether we know these people or not, people that feel like we would know, people that we work with, you know, young people involved in this. 

So I guess my question is, as you look at this as mayor of New York and as a former NYPD captain, how can we prevent some blatant act of violence like this from happening again? Where are the things that can be done that could stop this from happening again?

Mayor Adams: I think that is such an important question, and you're right. All of us, in some way or another, even if we did not know the victims, there's a personal attachment, and mine is with the dad of police officer, the police officer that we lost. He has only one son. I have only one son. And I thought about Jordan as I did the press conference yesterday. The emotion of that was overwhelming for me. 

What we have to do is both proactive and preventive. Proactive, our laws must be clearer on identifying those with mental health issues. There appears to be, from the reports we're getting, that there's a mental health aspect to this, and we have to ensure that our laws are stronger. 

New York City, we have some of the strongest gun laws in the country, but as you saw, this gun came from outside our city, and the police officers in this city have removed over 23,000 illegal guns off our streets to keep New Yorkers safe, and that's why you see the record numbers of shooters and homicides are at the lowest level in these six months in the recorded history of the city. We know we're the safest big city in America, but that's no consolation when you have a tragedy of this magnitude.

MacCallum: Well, you see this image of him walking in broad daylight with this AR right down the side of him, and you wonder, like, you know, so is this on camera inside the building? There was one officer at the front door. There doesn't seem to be anything that prevented him from getting into the building. 

Once he shot that officer, there were two people that were killed in that lobby. It just feels, you know, too easy, and also the presence of police officers on the street, mayor, honestly, is something else that has been brought up a lot to me, you know, that back in the day, it felt like officers were walking up and down the city blocks all the time, and I want you to tell me if we're wrong in feeling that that is not always the case anymore. Two things there.

Mayor Adams: One, when you have an individual who has a determination to put in place violence of that magnitude, everyone he encountered, except for one individual, everyone he encountered, he attempted to take their lives. He was determined to do harm, and in a law enforcement approach, that is something extremely challenging. 

The response of our police officers, I believe, saved many lives, and what Rooting Management did with the building, they created safe rooms that doubled as bathrooms with bulletproof doors that you can lock yourself in and no one can get inside. 

They carried out several active shooter drills, and I think that action saved the lives of people because of their proactive approach. It is extremely challenging in law enforcement when you have a person who is determined to carry out violence. You have to stop them before they can carry out more, or in this case, he stopped himself when he took his own life.

MacCallum: Do you, I wanna circle back to the weapon that you just mentioned a moment ago, but do you believe that we have enough police officers out on the street, you know, walking the blocks so that the presence of them is felt on the streets of New York, mayor?

Mayor Adams: Yes, we do, and under this commissioner, Commissioner Tisch, you're seeing an increase in police officers. 4,000 new officers are coming on board. The deployment of our police personnel is done in a very scientific, important law enforcement way, and you see, particularly in our center, Manhattan, in our business district, you have the presence of police officers not only on foot patrol, but we also have our officers with high-powered rifles going to sensitive locations. There's a combination. This incident did not unfold because of the lack of police personnel. It unfolded because a very dangerous person decided he was going to take the life of anyone he came in contact with.

MacCallum: Let me just ask you, mayor, about this other weapons part and the investigation into that. The word that was used was that he supplied this other part. Was this part supplied, do you believe, according to what you know so far, in Nevada? Was it supplied somewhere along the way? Do we know?

Mayor Adams: That is still under active investigation. We know he was employed in a casino in Nevada, and his relationship with the associate who gave him the lower half of the weapon, we know that he also was a resident of Nevada. But again, our detectives are going there now to do a thorough investigation on both the weapons that were recovered.

MacCallum: So, Commissioner Tisch is saying that we have located that associate and others, and we'll be questioning him about that purchase. That sounds like a wider circle, perhaps, than just one other person. And again, obviously, part of this investigation will be if they knew what his intentions were and if they were accomplices, right?

Mayor Adams: Exactly, and this is a continuously evolving investigation, and it is our desire to ensure that we notify New Yorkers as quickly as possible. And yesterday, we used the Citizen app to do a push notification to those residents, those individuals who were in the building, as well as those who lived in the area, to keep them updated when the individual terminated his life.

MacCallum: Do you, two more quick questions. Do you have any information on the NFL, the injured person who was an NFL employee?

Mayor Adams: No, not at this time. It's still an investigation. We want to be able to notify families appropriately and ensure that we give them their privacy at this time.

MacCallum: In terms of advice for hardening these office spaces around the city, obviously, there are thousands of offices all over this city. Do you have advice to employers in terms of what they should do to increase security?

Mayor Adams: Yes, and what we put in place during the beginning of the administration, we put in place a security team of corporate security heads, those who head corporations and the security in their corporations. We bring them together monthly and we sit down and we look at best practices. 

We introduce new technology that could be used and we share how we could continue to harden these targets. And we believe the result of some of those meetings is what Rudin Management did successfully by creating those safe rooms, carrying out active shooter drills, some of the practices that we believe we were able to put in place with our corporate leaders we think can save lives.

MacCallum: What went through your mind when you saw those photos of the Blackstone employees who had barricaded themselves into their floor by piling up every piece of furniture that they could find in front of their door, mayor?

Mayor Adams: Those, it states that training works. Those are some of the practices that are shared on best practices to slow down the shooter or even stop the shooter. And as I walked through the building and saw the line of blood and saw what happened, looking at the tapes, I think it was a combination of God and police officers who carried out their job to immediately go through the building floor by floor to save lives.

MacCallum: Well, we pray for the families of this police officer and these other three individuals. The police officer's wife is expecting a baby. As we said before, the city will wrap its arms around these families, but their grief is very deep today. And I know that the NYPD grief is very deep. Anytime you lose one of your own, it's just an absolute tragedy. And we thank them for their protection of the city in some difficult circumstances yesterday. Mayor Adams, thank you very much. Good to have you here today, sir.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care.

###