Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live On WNBC’s “News 4 New York”

March 28, 2024

[Video plays.]

Mayor Eric Adams: And I say, those who are afraid of scanners and rather not walk through it, I'd rather you be safe. So, let's bring on the scanners and we are taking a huge step towards public safety.

[Video ends.]

Adam Kuperstein: That is Mayor Adams today announcing that scanners are coming to the subway to detect guns and crack down on crime.

Gilma Avalos: And joining us now to talk about the city's fight against subway crime is Mayor Adams live from City Hall. Thank you so much for joining us, Mayor Adams.

And we know everyone wants to feel safe on our subways, but with so many random crimes underground not involving guns, instead ordinary objects like water bottles, suspects using fists and feet to hurt people, do you expect that this gun detecting technology will make it different in the perception of public safety?

Mayor Adams: Thank you for having me on. And if I could just take a few moments to really tell New Yorkers, I was out at the wake of young Jonathan, who we lost, a police officer who died in a line of duty, and New Yorkers, our hearts, go out to him and his family.

I spoke with his wife and the family members that were there. And we're going to continue to support our police officers as they are clearly standing in the gap of danger. And that is why we're doing what we're doing in our subway system.

It's more than just scanners. It is the infusing of those police officers. We saw an uptick in violence in January. We infused a thousand officers into the system. We saw a double-digit decrease in February, double-digit decrease now here in March.

It is a combined effort and we roll out our SCOUT program that is going to deal with those who are having severe mental health challenges. And that's the focus that we are looking at in our subway system.

Kuperstein: Mayor Adams, I want to follow up on something that you said this week about that random deadly subway shove that happened at the 125th in Lexington Station. Let's take a listen.

[Video plays.]

Mayor Adams: The other day at 125th Street in Lexington Avenue, do you know we had six cops there? Six cops, platform, token booth, they were presents. Bad guys no longer fear the police. They feel emboldened.

[Video ends.]

Kuperstein: So, if police can't help solve the problem, what can you do about it?

Mayor Adams: No. They are. Our police officers are doing the job every day, but oftentimes we fail to realize that the criminal justice system is made up of several different components. We are making our arrests. We are apprehending people. Even if they want to show a level of disrespect, we're still taking actions.

Even to fare evaders. Many of the fare evaders we're finding are carrying weapons. We found one earlier that had a nine millimeter weapon on them. The person who did that shooting on the train did not pay his fare.

What we're saying to the criminal justice apparatus, that includes everything from prosecutors to judges to lawmakers, public safety is a combined effort, and we cannot think that it's only that man and a woman who wears that police uniform. We're going to do our job. The other pieces of the criminal justice apparatus must do theirs, as well.

Avalos: Mr. Mayor, with National Guard underground now, state police doing bag checks, what is your measure of success, considering that you said yourself that some criminals aren't responding to law enforcement at all?

Mayor Adams: Well, the measure of success is to be clear with New Yorkers, I believe several important points. Number one, we have a recidivist problem, not a criminal justice problem. Anytime you could have 38 people who assaulted transit employees arrested over 1,100 times, that's a problem. 545 people arrested for shoplifting were arrested over 7,000 times. That's a problem.

And we have a real issue of those with severe mental health illnesses. And that is why we must be really proactive, get our state lawmakers to assist us, giving teeth to Kendra's Law so that we can do involuntary removals.

Many people pushed back in the earlier when I stated we needed to do this, now it's in the results on why we need to do it. That's what's impacting our city right now. These random acts of violence that's connected to recidivism and connected to severe mental health illnesses, that is making us feel our cities are… Is out of control when it is not.

This is the safest big city in America and our subway system with over four million riders, we have an average of six felonies a day. We're going to give rid of those six felonies, but our police department is stepping up to keep the city safe.

Kuperstein: MayorAdams, mental health has been a problem for a long time. Do you have any theory about those random attacks, the stranger attacks? There's been a sharp rise in these attacks lately. Any reason why this is happening? People aren't getting robbed necessarily for money. It's not about an argument. They sometimes seem out of nowhere. Any explanation for what's happening there?

Mayor Adams: I think that's a very important issue that you just raised. Listen, Covid impacted all of us, and there's a real devastating impact on how Covid impacted us. Some folks are dealing with depression and other issues, but some of the violence that you're seeing.

We had a large number of mental health beds, psychiatric beds that were taken offline because of Covid. We had many people who are being treated for just their issue of emergency, given a medicine for one day and then allowed to go back into the street. That's why we're stating we need to take a totality of a person's health to make sure they're getting the support that they need.

And it's just really making sure we give people those services early identifiers, not having a revolving door mental health action plan. And that's what Dr. Vasan and Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom, that's what we've been saying.

And let me tell you something else. We have this problem. Many people told me when I first got elected, they said, Eric, it's a no win situation. Don't try to get engaged in it. And I said, that is not who we must be as a city. We can't allow our brothers and sisters who are dealing with severe mental health illness not get the support that they deserve.

Kuperstein: I know everyone would like to see that change. Mayor Adams, we're out of time, but thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you very much.

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