Transcript: Mayor Eric Adams Appears Live on Caribbean Power Jam's "The Reset Talk Show"

October 28, 2022

JR Giddings: Welcome back. This is the Reset Talk Show. Audience, tell a friend to tell a friend right now to jump on. We have Mayor Eric Adams joining us right now. Good morning, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: Hey, brother. How are you? And how are the listeners? Good to speak with you all on this Monday, or I should say, once a month check-in that we committed to during the campaign. And it's good to see you each month.

Giddings: Brother, Mayor Adams, it's always good to have you back on the Reset Talk Show. I know you have limited time this morning as well, but over the last weekend you held a summit with five district attorneys and Police Commissioner Sewell to address subway crime, which is on the uptake. What measures are in place to curb subway crime?

Mayor Adams: Well, the summit was really dealing with criminal justice in our city and state. We did something separate on subway crime that I will talk about in a moment, but the summit included defense attorneys, prosecutors, four of the DAs, as well as people who are part of the judiciary, as well as lawmakers. Latrice Walker was there, a representative from Carl Hastie's office, and [Leader] Andrea Stewart-Cousins. We all got in the room and we stated, "Let's not talk at each other, but let's talk with each other." And we walked away from that weekend realizing that if you look at the 10 items that we wanted to discuss, eight of those 10 we were all on the same page with.

Yes, there's some philosophical differences on maybe a small percentage of the items, but we knew that the criminal justice system needed repairing. It was broken. There were some changes made in Albany, but the infrastructure that was needed to ensure those changes is not in place. There's discovery laws, and I'm sure Attorney Archibald can even give you insight on that, of when police and a defense attorney must turn over data and evidence. There was no real support put in place to a system in doing that. Technology is almost absent from our criminal justice system. We don't use the Zoom that we learned to use, attorneys are spending four hours just to go in front of a judge for two to three minutes. So we saw a system that was bottlenecked, that did not do service to both victims of crimes and those who are accused of crimes. And we sat down, talked about it for two days over the weekend, and we walked away breaking into smaller groups to zero in on how we can get the justice we deserve. And not just win. We shouldn't want to just win a case. We should be pursuing justice, and that's what we walked away with. But specifically dealing with the subway crime, we announced with Governor Hochul this week the second phase of what we rolled out in January.

And JR, we need to be very clear when we talk about subway crime. We have approximately six felonies that occur on our system a day, six a day, we have 3.5 million riders. So yes, we want to stop those six felonies, but when you have 3.5 million people that move through the system every day with no incident at all, because police officers are doing their jobs and 40 percent of the homicides on our system, those nine homicides, 40 percent of them came from people with mental health issues and history. So what we're doing now, we're zeroing in on those mental health issues that people are having and focusing on those people who are committing those other dangerous felonies.

But overall, it's about omnipresence. We must deal with the actual crime, those six felonies and how people are feeling. People feel unsafe and there's a number of reason people feel unsafe. They feel unsafe because every day we're highlighted, there's six worst things that happen on the subway system every day and you don't never see a highlight that say 3.5 million people rode the system with no incident at all, every day. And I'm on the subway. I'm in the system, I'm speaking to people, I ride the trains a lot, and I constantly hear from those people who are in the system, how they appreciate the visible presence of police officers, the removal of the encampments, and so many other things we're doing.

Giddings: Thank you, Mayor Adams. That’s why we’re so happy that you come to this platform monthly to speak to the people directly because a lot of misinformation is out there, yes. There is one complaint that I have got from quite a few people, and the complaint is about the cops being on the phone in the subway. I have heard that from at least … once they know they know you’re coming on, I get all the complaints. So I want to direct that at you. 

Mayor Adams: Yeah, and remember - I know people remember when I first got in office in January, that was something I was alarmed and concerned about of far too often officers were on their phones, congregating in groups, and we wanted to immediately deal with that. Now, part of being on the phone is because the department switched to use of smartphones. Their memo book entries, how they get notifications and communication. So some of that phone usage was good phone usage but far too much of it was not, and we zeroed in that. 

JR, what was the real problem in the city is that we told police officers to take a stand down approach for the most part. They were not proactively correcting conditions, we’re walking past homeless people, we’re allowing fare evasion, we were allowing just total disruption and disorder on our system, and now we are retraining officers on the days when I was a transit police officer, we were patrolling differently, we’re now training officers on how do we correct conditions in our subway system and your going to continue to see a new elevation. 

Now, you know, JR, something else to point out. The last time we had real ridership in the subway system was in 2019, due to COVID our ridership dropped. When you compare 2022 to 2019, we have less index crimes in 2022 than 2019, 2018, 2017, and for the last ten years. So we need to really put this in proper perspective, our index crimes are lower now than it was before because we are doing the right thing of making sure we are proactive and reactive to the issues of public safety in a system.

Giddings: Thank you, Mayor Adams. I know you have a quick out again. Pastor Straker, your question for the mayor.

Pastor Louis Straker, Jr.: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. It's good to have you with us. It was great to have you with us yesterday for the St. Vincent and the Grenadines flag raising. That was something. Thank you so much for your leadership. Quick question.

Mayor Eric Adams: First time in history the flag was raised down at Bowling Green. It just goes to show you the continuation of the pride of the Caribbean diaspora. Several different islands and countries were able to raise their flags. We want to continue to show our pride of our Caribbean community and other ethnic and immigrant and emerging immigrants communities in the city.

Straker: Yes, sir. And you are the only mayor to ever be at these kinds of events. It just talks about your leadership. You're here, there, everywhere at the same time.

I have a quick question for you concerning the migrant issue. How concerned are you with the influx of the migrants to cities like ours and the financial burden? And given the fact that we know that this is, it really is a federal problem, what conversations are you having with the president, and what do you believe should be a workable solution for the boarder crisis?

Mayor Adams: Thank you, brother. Two weeks ago I made the determination to speak directly to the New York City public, because what was happening is our entire operation was being defined through the local media. It was a clear distortion of what was taking place. And I told Bob Chain, we can no longer allow others to define how we have handled these crises in our city. I spoke directly to the New York City public. We told the public what we were dealing with. It was an honest, I like to say Roosevelt moment of being candid. We told them what we were dealing with, what we were doing to correct the problem, what we have done, and what we needed from the federal and state government. And we were clear. We needed a decompression strategy on a federal level.

Washington heard us. The president put in place a decompression strategy at the border. We saw an average of almost ten buses a day, about eight to nine, ten buses a day. We saw it slow down to a trickle. Now it has allowed us to handle this problem better. Our team, with local community based organizations and the clergy with Pastor Monrose, we were able to ensure that no family arrived here and had to sleep on the streets with children. They were able to go into some form of shelter environment.

Now we need to make sure that Washington gives us the financial resources because this is a big impact on our city. We are projecting a 10 billion budget deficit in out of years. New Yorkers cannot be denied the services that they need here in the city. So it was crucial. We got a call from the mayor of El Paso who stated he would no longer be sending buses here. That's very important, we still have an issue here that we have to address, but stopping the flow was important. It was predicted that we were going to receive over 100,000 migrants. That would've really decimated this city. And we already received some of the largest numbers of migrant and asylum seekers than any of the municipality in this country. Everything from those from Ukraine that's fleeing the war there, to those that are coming from other countries, from the continent of Africa, from South to Central America. New York is doing its part, and we need to make sure the national government comes with a clear immigrant policy.

Straker: Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor.

Giddings: Attorney Archibald, quick question for the mayor.

Attorney Archibald: Absolutely. Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you? Good to see you, brother.

Archibald: Always a pleasure to see you as well. Now in regards to optics, you would agree that perception versus reality controls and spins certain statistics in ways that cast aspersions on the city. And I'll tell you specifically what I'm speaking of, Eric.

Right now, on a daily basis we see either newspaper articles or news reports putting New York City in a light that should be 30, 40 years removed in terms of how dangerous it is, how crime ridden it is and the like. I want to throw something at you and see how best we could move forward to let the public get the confidence that they need that New York City is still by far the safest city in America, not just in the tri-state area, but in the United States of America.

On average, the large cities in America have about 15 murders per 100,000 residents. 15 on average. The city with the highest in the country right now is St. Louis with over 64 murders per 100 residents. Last year, New York City averaged about 5.5 murders per 100 residents. And today we are on track to be around 4.4, which is a 10 to 11 percent reduction, making the city even safer. Now these statistics are available for everyone to peruse, so why is it that the media's controlling the narrative that we are such a dangerous city?

So the question to you, Mr. Mayor, is what are you and your administration plan going to do to make these statistics a conversation that's held at every dinner table in the city so people can stop feeling afraid to be in the city that's the safest city in America?

Mayor Adams: You know, brother, that's why you’re such a darn good attorney, because you present a case so well. And there's a real desire... fear sells. Fear headlines sell. Having a headline that says 3.5 million people use our subway system without any incident every day is not selling headlines. It's not selling newspapers. It's not causing clicks on so social media. And so what we must do is exactly what you stated. Our team is now saying, we must have direct to consumer communications and let people know the real facts.

When I ran for mayor, I was clear: we were dealing with gun violence and I stated that I was going to deal with this over proliferation of guns, gun violence, murders, and shootings. We have a double digit decrease in shootings in the city, a double digit decrease in homicides. We removed over 5,000 illegal guns off our streets. We are trending exactly what I said I was focusing on. Now we're looking at, in addition to that, the felonies of robberies, grand larcenies, and some of those other areas.

But you're right, we all one of the safest big cities in America. But when you every day wake up in the morning and you see the worst things that happened in your city every day on the first five, six, seven pages of the paper, you are going to internalize and believe your city's out of control and you have a mayor that is not managing this city correctly, which is just not true. We have been capable (inaudible) the crises, that's why this city did not shut down and our schools did not shut down. We managed the monkeypox crisis. We managed the polio crisis. We managed the migrant crises. We're adjusting to the economic crisis. You are seeing a city of this size, the largest and most important city in America, being managed by a man of color who is putting in place real systems of dealing with the dysfunctionality that has been in this city and in many cities across America.

But we need to speak directly to the consumers, directly to New Yorkers, because the mass media is not going to tell our story. They're going to do just the opposite. And Attorney Archibald, here's the real problem. When I encourage corporations to come from other cities and countries to do business here and I'm on the phone with them and they tell me that, "Eric, it's fearful for us to allow our employees to come here because we're told that if they come into the subway system, they're going to be a victim of a crime.” That's just not true. 3.5 million people use this system every day and don't have any incidents at all. And we have to stop selling this negative commentary, which is not a reflection of the safest big city in America.

Archibald: Correct. And if I may, your honor, in terms of the subway, without which the city will come to a grinding halt in my view, the statistics for the crime in the subway are less than one tenth of one percent. One tenth of one percent. Not even one percent, and that figure needs to be broadcasted on a daily basis to show the relative safety of taking a subway ride from your destination to the next, from one destination to the next, rather. It is that low.

Mayor Adams: Well said, well said. And that is why we must speak directly to consumers, because our goal is to give the facts. The goal of the mass media is to sell the hysteria.

Archibald: Indeed.

Giddings: Mayor Adams, which leads me to the other point, your campaign promise, where you maintain that the messaging is poor. So you have to level the playing field with the grassroots platforms and mainstream media and this is what we have to do and this is what you're doing. You're able to come here and speak to close to a million people once a month, and letting them know the real-real. I think that's very important. Before you get off, can you speak to the topic on the judge who tossed out the COVID vaccine mandates and is ordering back pay for those workers?

Mayor Adams: Well the decision is really in contrast to the decision that has already been in court and ruled in court. We are appealing the case. We're confident that we are going to win the appeal. We believe some judges make decisions on their own political views, but the court will decide, and whatever way the court determined, we're going to always follow the law, follow the rule. We have a very competent Corporation Counsel and Judge Sylvia Hinds-Radix, Brooklyn through and through. We're so happy to have her there. And we will let her and her team go to court and deal with the appeal process.

Giddings: Thank you, Mayor Adams. Mayor Adams, a lot of great things have happened on your watch, including on Wednesday you appointed Laura Kavanagh commissioner of the New York City Fire Department. It's important that you're putting women in positions and you're making all these historical moves.

Mayor Adams: So true. And when you do an analysis, we know history is going to be reflective and kind to this administration, because we are shattering those pre-existing barriers of not only doing the first among women, the first administration to have women who are the deputy mayors. All the top five deputy mayors in my administration are all women. My chief advisor is a woman. First administration to have a woman as a police commissioner. First administration to have a woman as a fire commissioner. First administration to have women to lead the majority of the uniformed services, probation, Department of Sanitation. First administration to have a Latino head of the Department of Correction. First administration to have a Korean head Small Business Services as a commissioner.

So when you start to look at not only what we're doing first in personnel, but first in policy, we're the first administration to have universal screening for dyslexia. 30 to 40 percent of our inmates on Rikers' Island are dyslexic. So we are an upstream administration, and what we are doing around summer youth employment, other ways of dealing with justice involved youth so that we can prevent instead of just react.

This administration can list off a series of things that no other administration has done in the history of this city, and we're proud of that. And as Attorney Archibald stated, it is imperative for us not to be a tree that falls in the forest and no one hears the noise, so we did not make a sound. We need to use platforms like yours and others to bypass those who want to distort the facts and just sell the belief of that we are not running this city correctly. With women leadership, an African American man, and a diverse population of other ethnic groups that have been ignored and passed over in the past, we're seeing our city, a city of this size, should be run.

Giddings: Leaders lead, and that's what you do, Mayor Adams. I got to tell you, we just have the governor on and I know it has a lot to do with you. And remember, we have to get Senator Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to the platform. We are in a very, very, very crucial stage as we get ready for the midterms, so I'm leaning on you again. We need to get those voices to the Reset Talk show.

Mayor Adams: And I'm going to see him over the weekend, and I'm going to get a commitment out of him as he talks about retaining control of the Senate and Congress. This is the platform he needs to speak on. And trust me, people stopped me all the time when I was campaigning and said, "Listen, I heard you on Reset.” They want to reset the direction of this country and this city and state. They need to get on the Reset Talk Show so they can have an opportunity to do so.

Giddings: My leader, my leader. Okay. Thanks for joining us. I know you have to jump off. I just got a few texts from your advisors. I know you have to go, so thanks.

Mayor Adams: Thank you, brother.

Giddings: Thanks for your time and see you soon. Enjoy your day.

Mayor Adams: Take care. You too.