(New York) The new mayor of New York, Eric Adams, promised on Monday to rid the megalopolis of guns, in particular by deploying plainclothes police to the streets after a series of violence in recent days that claimed the life of a young agent.
Posted at 6:02 p.m.
“Gun violence is a public health crisis that continues to threaten every corner of the city,” said this former African-American police officer when announcing a series of measures.
“Public safety is my administration’s top priority and that’s why we’re going to get guns off our streets, protect our people, and create a safe, prosperous, and just city for all New Yorkers,” said this elected representative of the right wing of the Democratic Party.
Arrived at the town hall on the 1er January on a program to fight against insecurity and socio-economic inequalities, Mr. Adams is confronted with an upsurge in various violent incidents.
On Friday, a 22-year-old New York City Police (NYPD) officer was killed and another seriously injured in an exchange of gunfire at an apartment in Harlem, northern Manhattan.
A week earlier in the same neighborhood, a 19-year-old Puerto Rican was shot dead by a robber in a fast food restaurant. On January 15, a 40-year-old Asian American woman was killed by a mentally ill homeless man who pushed her onto a subway track as the train pulled into the Times Square station.
This murder, without a weapon, marked the spirits, as much as the injuries inflicted on an 11-month-old girl hit by a stray bullet in the Bronx, while she was in the car with her mother.
“We are not going to abandon our city to the violence of the few,” thundered Mr. Adams.
One of the key measures of his plan is the reinstatement of plainclothes police patrols, rebranded ‘anti-crime units’ as ‘anti-gun units’ which were cut in 2020 after the African American’s death. George Floyd, killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.
These police officers were feared, when Michael Bloomberg was mayor (2002-2013), for their controversial searches of young Blacks and Hispanics suspected of carrying firearms.
Gun violence in New York – disproportionate to what it was 30 years ago – increased slightly in 2021 (+4.3% compared to 2020, itself up on 2019) in particular due to the COVID-19 pandemic.