Transcript: Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Sewell Crush Illegal Motorbikes and ATVS

June 21, 2022

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm happy to be here with Police Commissioner Sewell, Transit Chief Jason Wilcox, Chief Jeff Maddrey, and all the men and women who are a part of this important initiative. We've heard it over and over throughout the winter, what are we going to do about these illegal dirt bikes that are terrorizing our entire city and communities?

Mayor Adams: Stated on the campaign trail that we were going to focus on these dirt bikes and ATVs. They are not only a nuisance and an annoyance to us, but they're extremely dangerous. We know that. We see them all the time and we hear them all times at night. We see the large numbers that are moving throughout our street, and we want to be clear that this is not acceptable.

Mayor Adams: But before I even go into the dirt bikes, I do want to just thank New Yorkers. Yesterday we had a horrific crash. I spoke with the mayor in Columbus to extend our help to those family members. But when you see the video of New Yorkers there responding to save the individuals who were the victim of the crash, it just really emphasizes how we are just an amazing city. No matter how difficult things are, no matter how many people say New Yorkers can be rude and New Yorkers can be that or this, when it's time to help each other, we are there.

Mayor Adams: I just want to personally say thank you. We can't find them to personally thank them, but if they're out there, we want them to know we appreciate them. They lift up the symbol of what New York is. That crash personifies our concern. This can't be a city where vehicle crashes are endangering lives of innocent people. Everyone that uses our roadways must understand that. That is our legal motorcycles, bicyclists, car drivers, skateboarders, scooters, we have to understand the full scope of who's using our streets, and we want to focus on that by making sure that illegal vehicles are going to be removed from our street.

Mayor Adams: We want to bring a level of safety from crashes of any type. When we announced our budget, that's why we allocated a billion dollars in safe street infrastructure, implementing the 24/7 speed cameras, something we fought hard for with Albany. We want to continue to expand that. We could do more. Speed cameras work, and we want to continue to do so.

Mayor Adams: But one of the most important things is what's behind us, those illegal dirt bikes. The NYPD heard the call and they did a Herculean task to get rid of these loud, intimidating and dangerous and illegal dirt bikes and ATVs that are on our street. For years, we've witnessed what happens when they go under control, or we do not enforce. They continue to grow over and over again.

Mayor Adams: I'm not going to give up on my promise and commitment to rid our streets of these bikes and make all of our boroughs safe places where people can move about. As you can see from the number of bikes here today, we are making good on that promise. 900 bikes, more than what they were able to remove last year, 88% increase because of the work of the New York City Police Department and communities.

Mayor Adams: Communities have called up shared information, and we were able to implement that information. So today, as we stand in the shadow of the Freedom Tower, we are freeing ourselves from these destructive pieces of machinery that's on our streets. They will be crushed today so that they can never terrorize our city again. Each and every one of them, they will be turned into scrap metal and eventually recycled.

Mayor Adams: The motorbikes are destroyed rather than resold or donated in order to prevent them from returning to our streets and not allow them to be operating again. So again, we want to thank all those who participated and assisted in the retrieving of these dirt bike. So we see this every year, it's the first day of summer, the increases go up. That's why we are using this day as a day of putting in place concrete actions to make sure that we get all of these illegal bikes and vehicles off our streets.

Mayor Adams: Of course we need to do more and we are going to do more. We're going to continue this pattern to rid the streets of these bikes. We have made great strides with our partners in Albany this session in securing the camera operations and other things, but we want them to do more also. This is what I learned when we were with Congressman Espaillat up in the Bronx. There's no reason we are selling these bikes without first proof of registration, proof of insurance.

Mayor Adams: Many of these bikes don't have insurance. If they strike someone, the person is left with medical costs and other out of pocket expenses, and so we are pushing for a legislation to have the ATV dealers to ask potential buyers to show proof of insurance and vehicle registration documents before removing these vehicles onto our street.

Mayor Adams: So we're going to keep doing our part. We are happy about what we're doing today. It’s sending a strong message of our consistency in this area. Really, my thanks to the Chief Of Patrol, Chief Maddrey and the Police Commissioner for ensuring that this initiative is important. Quality of life is everything, and it is our focus to deal with crime and the quality of life aspects, and these dirt bikes were a menace to the quality of life.

Mayor Adams: Commissioner?       

Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, Police Department: Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Commissioner Sewell: Thank you all for being here today, along with Mayor Adams. We're here at Erie Basin Auto Pound to send a very strong and very clear message to anyone who illegally operates an ATV, dirt bike, or other such vehicle on the streets of New York City. We will seize that bike and we will destroy it. We take this very seriously because driving these motor bikes on city streets, on sidewalks, or in parks, and within housing developments is dangerous. It's reckless and it's illegal. It puts everyone at risk. Other drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and not to mention the bike riders themselves.

Commissioner Sewell: Our city will not tolerate this, and the NYPD will use every tool at our disposal to rid our neighborhoods of these hazards. It is the people living in these communities who are making the majority of complaints. They are telling us loud and clear to get these motorbikes out of our neighborhoods and keep them out. The NYPD got the message and that's exactly what we're doing today.

Commissioner Sewell: Since January the NYPD has seized over 2,000 of these vehicles citywide. As the mayor said, that's nearly over 80% more than we took by this time last year. Today, we're ensuring that the bikes behind me will never return to our streets. They will never again endanger another child, another grandmother on the sidewalk, or another family simply trying to enjoy a day in the park. They will never again have a place in New York City. That's why we have ended up here.

Commissioner Sewell: As we've said before, traffic safety is public safety. It deserves our full and focused attention, especially since we know that every death on our roadways and every injury should be preventable. So the NYPD will continue to work closely with the Mayor's Office and the Department of Transportation, and the residents of our city who demand that our streets, sidewalks in all public areas remain safe for everyone. That's what New Yorkers deserve, and that's what their police department will deliver.

Commissioner Sewell: Chief Maddrey?

Jeffery Maddrey, Chief of Patrol, Police Department: Yes. Thank you, Commissioner, and thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good afternoon to the members of the media. Just really quick, just talking about some of the strategies that we'll be using this summer to make sure our quality of life is where it needs to be, safe, and to make sure our community's a great place to live, work and play.

Maddrey: Patrol will be working closely with the highway units, we'll be working closely with our Transportation Bureau and our Community Affairs Bureau. We want to make sure we get the message out to everybody who thinks about riding these bikes that they are illegal and they will be subject to be seized. At every Patrol Bureau, there's an inspector in charge, and that inspector will look at the trends, will look at the patterns of these illegal bikes and ATVs. The inspector will implement strategies from our overarching strategy that are more localized and meet the needs of the community.

Maddrey: We'll monitor 311 jobs to see where riding is persistent. We'll use our social media. We'll use social media to monitor where meetups are and where ride out locations are so we can address those locations. Our members understand most importantly that safety is paramount, so we're going to take these bikes in a strategic and a tactical way, but to make sure that everyone is safe.

Maddrey: We'll issue summonses for any violations of the law and the bikes may very well end up right here. These vehicles are not built for our city streets, for the motorist volume, for the pedestrian volume. They're not to be used.

Maddrey: Last week in the 49th precinct, the commanding officer addressed some community concerns and took 19 bikes in one day. This is what we'll continue to do. We'll implement strategies at the local level, listening to our communities, hearing their voices, and then we're going to go out and seize these bikes. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Before we go to crushing, we just want to talk about, the Police Commissioner and I, with Chief Wilcox, have moved to the next phase of our subway safety plan, which included looking  at what was put in place in 2014, for many years of when the transit police department was in place and then becoming the bureau, we had a version of what was called single patrol. I did it as a police officer. One thing you know about me, I would not have anyone do a job that I'm not willing to do myself. We were in the system last night. We were truly impressed with the initial rollout that Chief Wilcox and Police Commissioner Sewell did yesterday. It was the first day. And we are going to continue that. Now, what does that look like? There are certain stations that are dual patrol. There's certain stations that are dual patrol. They will stay dual patrol. During the overnight hours we will have police officers that are doing train patrol. You will have two officers on the train, but they won't be standing together.

Mayor Adams: One will have the back end and walk through. One will have the front end and walk through. To make sure that during the night hours, overnight hours, that they will have the protection that to if there's a need for a service. Something that I did alone as a police officer. We are going to look at those stations where they do single patrol is suitable, and we will do that. This is the next phase of our transit safety plan. This is a smart way of deploying our police officers. We were not deploying our police. You see it at parades, you see you walk down a friendly parade, you see a parade, you see five officers on one side of the street on the corner, five at another side of the street. This is not how you deploy your manpower. I promised this on the campaign trail, I'm living up to the promise of the chief of department, chief of patrol, the police commissioner.

Mayor Adams: We're all looking, how do we better utilize our resources. Yesterday on the subway system, it was clear the passengers that stopped us, spoke with us, they said, "We want to see that blue uniform. We want to see that blue uniform. We feel better. And we feel as though the police are present." Now, we learned also on the subway system, we're going to move with the MTA to put in place a massive campaign on how to be a safe passenger. Many people don't know the best place to stand during the late hours is in the conductor's position. There are zebra stripes near the ceiling on a bar that tells you where the conductor position is. We need to educate people to do that.

Mayor Adams: While I was out, I saw women passengers in isolated areas, standing alone. That is just unsafe. So we must play a role of educating passengers how to be partners in safety. How to be aware, how to be conscious, how to use our system in a fair, in a safe way. We're going to do our job, but the partnership makes it easier. And now that we're going to see a greater deployment of our police officers, we're answering what passengers ask for, to make sure we have that omni presence. A term I use often to talk about the full presence of police officers in our system, but properly utilizing them to carry out the job we want. Deterrents, visibility, focus, interacting with the passengers and interacting with those who use the system. Commissioner you want to add on that?

Commissioner Sewell: Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As Mayor Adams said, we've been saying this since this administration started, New Yorkers depend on the NYPD to keep them safe in our transit system. And that's exactly what this plan aims to do. We will cover more ground by patrolling more subway cars per tour, and increased police presence leads to a safer ride for customers and MTA personnel alike. We take great pride in our public safety mission in the nation's largest subway system. And as we've stressed before, we are always looking to improve the ways we work and how we do our job to keep New Yorkers safe. In January, we outlined a Subway Safety Plan that deployed more than 1,000 additional officers into the trains and on subway platforms system-wide. They worked together with the thousands of officers who are currently assigned full-time to the transit bureau and are focused on the lines and stations that need them the most.

Commissioner Sewell: These deployments provide vital coverage across the entire system. And now we are extending that coverage even further. The transit patrol plan will be intelligence driven, adaptable to shifting crime trends, and based on real-time crime conditions in the transit system. The goal is enhanced crime prevention and deterrents, not merely a response. In realizing that goal requires every available resource we have, and it demands the full partnership at every level of our criminal justice system. We, at the NYPD, are committed as always to the safety and security of everyone on our trains and in our platforms. And in our city, this transit network is designed to connect us, to link the incredible diversity of our neighborhoods and all the people who travel through them. It has the powerful ability to bring us together, but only when riders are completely confident that the system is safe. And that's our job to make it safe and keep it safe. And that's exactly what we plan to do. I'll ask Chief Jason Wilcox to come talk about our plan.

Jason Wilcox, Chief of Transit, Police Department: Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Also, I want to take the second at this moment to thank all the members of the NYPD that work day and night to keep our subway system safe. As the commissioner and the mayor also pointed out the New York City subway system is the largest in the country and safeguarding such a sprawling system is certainly a challenge. And to do this, we must continue to deploy our resources and trains and on platforms as effectively and efficiently as possible. And now this effort. With this effort officer's working day and evening hours will now – some will now conduct solo train patrols. Solo train patrol represents an additional layer, another step in one of our key objectives since the start of this year with the Subway Safety Plan to focus on uniform train patrols.

Wilcox: To expand our presence, increase our visibility in the subways and on the trains, to both keep people safe, but also to make them feel safe. No one knows how to patrol and navigate the subway system better than our NYPD transit officers. And as they maintain their solo patrols, we will always focus on their safety. Their safety is paramount. As the plan is laid out, the officers doing solo train patrol will stay within one district, on one radio division, patrolling the lines and stations that they are the most familiar with. Keeping them in close proximity to support, quick backup and within accessible range of their supervisors, they will be close enough to stay on the same radio frequency and always be in contact with each other. These solo train patrols will not be conducted on overnight tours when officers would continue to ride the trains and walk the platforms as a team, as the mayor spelled out, entering a train car and moving within both right and left of the train, inspecting every train car, and then meeting back in the middle.

Wilcox: Additionally, any other officers undergoing field training, our youngest officers, and other task force models, canine, subway safety task force will not be impacted by this patrol plan. As the commissioner said, the locations are fluid and are based on current crime conditions in each command. And the district commanding officers have the flexibility to respond to the fluid nature of these trends and make adjustments and adapt. The patrol plan covers train lines that travel through every borough in the city, except for Staten Island. They represent some of the most traveled subway lines in the world. And we remain determined, determined to keep those that ride the New York City subways safe. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: You know what, as we are going to open to questions, but it was so important when Commissioner Sewell took over how I knew she was going to bring a level of just vision to look at a good department and allow it to become a great department. And you couldn't do it if you just continued to do the things that we did. Criminals continue to evolve. Their methods change, their actions change, and I needed someone that was willing to change and be adaptable and bring the right team together to do so. And I knew it then, and I feel even stronger now that the city is extremely fortunate to have a commissioner that is dedicated to keeping the city safe. And we're going to continue to evolve our product. Every time there's an evolution in the criminal element, we're going to keep pace with them to keep this city safe. So I thank the commissioner and her team for doing so. Open to any questions. So Steve, you.

Question:  First, I have two questions. First, on the dirt bikes. Like as far as some of your terminology, this seems very much like a downstream solution here. Any upstream ideas about giving these kids a space to be able to do this, like a track or exclusive park and something that might not lead to antagonizing between them and police officers wanting to take their bike?

Mayor Adams: Yes. And as you know, when you use the term downstream, I say intervention and prevention. Always put them together, because while we are giving people access to safe places to ride, we have an idea of looking at some of the spaces that are here in the city, where you could have a safe place to ride dirt bikes or ATVs. That is one of our focus. But we have to deal with the intervention right now, unregistered bike, illegal use of it. So we are going to do both. I believe we must have intervention and prevention. I'm dead on with you. You know, I loved riding a dirt bike when I was a child, and so I think it's crucial that we have those spaces. And we're going to look at some of the spaces out there to allow them to ride.

Question: And secondly on the Broadway crash, the Business Improvement District [inaudible] put out a statement [inaudible] street advocates saying if this stretch of Broadway was only open to pedestrians and bicyclists like a lot of other parts of Broadway in the city, this crash would not have happened. Are you moving towards the whole pedestrianization of] Broadway?

Mayor Adams: Not at this time.

Question:  Would you like to see more access [inaudible] have in other places?

Mayor Adams: I love open streets. Ydanis Rodriguez, our commissioner, is part of his plan to come forward and tell me what's the best way to do it. I have a lot of faith in Ydanis. But the more open streets we have, the better it is. I love when I'm on Time Square, that extra space that we have. So, he's looking at if that's one of our target areas.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Hey, Tina.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Would they make arrests? Without a doubt. You don't send your troops into battle and then don't give them the support that they need. And I think that we should listen clearly to what Chief Wilcox stated. They're operating within their district. They're going to be able to call for assistance when needed with their radios and using their cell phones. We didn't have that. Many people don't know, but as a transit police officer, back then your radios rarely worked, and how you got help, you would throw your stick out the train car and made a unique sound. And if an officer happened to be at the station, he knew that was a call for service. Or you will have a whistle blown by the conductor.

Mayor Adams: And so, we're not putting the officers in the harm's way that I believe many of us were. We're going to use technology. We're going to make sure that this is smartly done to get the omnipresence we want, but at the same time, make sure the officers' going to do their job. But 100%, we're going to make sure the officers receive the support they deserve, and I made that clear over and over again.

Question: [Inuadible]. Two questions for the mayor. [inaudible] running a campaign [inaudible]. Can you talk a little bit more about what they're going to encourage people to do? I mean, do you have concerns, would you say like women [inaudible] an area [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: No, and it's not – no, people should not be in an isolated area. I happen to have seen a few women who were in isolated areas. Some of the crimes that we witnessed, there was a horrific one of a young model, she was by herself at the end of the platform where the person choked her, brutally assaulted her. She was alone. No one was there to hear her cries. No one was there to help her. When I ride the subway system, I look for the zebra stripes, I get in the conductors car or the motor manage car.

Mayor Adams: So, what I'm asking all passengers to do are the things that I learned as being a passenger and a former transit police officer to how do you ride safely? We all should be able to ride safely, but say this over and over again, don't live life the way it ought to be; live it the way it is until we get it to where it ought to be. Right now, you ought not to be in an unsafe place in the system. We have panic buttons that's right near the safe spaces. We want to educate people about those panic buttons. We want to educate them where the zebra stripes are located, where during late hours it's best to stand. We want to give people information so they can make the right choices. Now, you have the freedom to do whatever you want on the system within the laws. If you want to stand at the end of the platform, you have the right to do so. We are going to give you our professional opinion how to have a safe ride.

Question:  Got it. So, you're talking about [inaudible] wondering if you can also give an update on maybe [inaudible] disciplinary process [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Yes, we want to – there's several things I want to do with the disciplinary process. Number one, we need to shorten the time. It just takes too long. Takes too long for the officers who are found innocent, and it takes too long for those who are not suitable to be police officers to stay in the department too long. And it just erodes your trust in the system. So, our goal is to make sure we shorten the period of time, to make sure that we have the right penalties handed down for those who have minor infractions or serious infractions, and that is our goal to do so. The police commissioner gave me a flow chart of the system. We're going through it to find out where the bottleneck is located so we can expedite these cases at a more rapid pace.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor Adams: How are you Katie?

Question: I'm good. So, I wanted to ask you about [inaudible]. I wanted to ask you, what are you going to do to take a look at [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: Well, first of all, you just gave some great ideas. We are going to go back and see the feasibility of getting them radios. I like the idea of allowing them to have ATVs or some way to get to a stretch of a beach. I think that's a brilliant idea. And I love the idea of coordination with the FDNY. And so, I'm going to have my team - you just gave Fabien more work to do. I'm going to have my team look at those three great ideas that you gave us as crucial.

Mayor Adams: Now, with that said, there's a national lifeguard shortage. It's a national shortage. I would love to go to the Jersey Shore and steal their lifeguards, but they have a shortage. I would like to go to Miami and tell Suarez I'm taking his lifeguards, but he has a shortage. So, there's a national shortage. We are looking at how do we fill that shortage? And we're looking at some of the rules that require a person to teach lessons to be – if they're teaching in city site, that they must have a license. They must have a lifeguard license. We're trying to see if we could rethink some of these rules to address these shortages. Because it breaks all our hearts to see a young person that dies mainly because they want to use the beach. So, our goal is to find a safe way to ensure that we can open as many beaches as possible and have as many lifeguards as possible.

Question: And just one follow-up. I know [inaudible]. Could you speak to [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: I read that story. I didn't see that part of the story that they were blocking the coordination. Now, if they're blocking the coordination because of a union issue, then we have to take that to the bargaining table. If they're blocking it because someone in City Hall historically made a policy, I'm going to tell you right now that policy's going to end very quickly. That is not going to happen. Union, we would negotiate at the bargaining table. Policy, I don't make the law; I make policy. And trust me, I'm going to find out, I'm going to speak to our legal team. I brought the article to their attention and I'm going to speak to our legal team to find out, is there some way that they are stopping the coordination? That is not going to happen if it's within my powers. You just said a lot of great ideas today, you know that?

Unknown: We're going to take couple more before we move on. [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: You're about to get in trouble because you keep passing over Marcia. Okay.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Well, you want to do the best you can to alleviate these accidents, and the goal is to eradicate them. Again, Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez is looking at - we're doing a substantial number of streets redesign. We'll find out if that is on his redesign. Our goal is to make sure that we are safe as possible. Part of this, as we do an analysis of the issues we're facing, a lot of this is dealing with speeding, reckless drivers. It's amazing how many fatalities are taking place on our highways right now. And that's why we're looking at the potentiality of even putting speed cameras on highways. When I looked at the video yesterday, I was disappointed to see the bicyclists went through the red light. That was troubling. So, it's human error, human recklessness, and street redesign. That's the combination. And that is why we are redesigning streets, and that's one of the things that Ydanis Rodriguez our commissioner's doing.

Unknown: Marcia Kramer, CBS.

Question:  [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Without a doubt. And you know, we have to get it right. I'm never going to allow expediency to get in the way of accuracy. We have to get it right. We have some real innovative ways up our sleeve that we're going to be rolling out, but we have to get it right. The commissioner's not going to let me just bring on anything. We're going to test things. We are open to the innovation, but the innovation must reach up to our expectation on what it could produce. We're excited. There's some good stuff out there, but we've got to make sure it's right.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Yeah, there's a couple of things that we like, but if I do that, you guys are going to write a story, so I just want to avoid the story. You know Katie's just waiting for me to say something so she could write a story. You know? We got to get it right, Marcia.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: There's a couple of stations that from my days of policing who would do patrol. 34th Street, huge station. Fulton, Broadway, and Nassau, and the A, 2, 3, J, M, 4, 5, huge station. When you look at 14th Street, those are dual patrol.

Mayor Adams: Now, we have seen an evolution from dual patrol to quadruple patrol and having six, seven officers doing patrol together. You know? So we understand. Chief Wilcox and his team, they fully understand what stations require dual patrol.

Mayor Adams: Now remember, transit has had dual patrol all the way up to 2014. Radios didn't work. Terrible infrastructure. These men and women did the job. They did it well. And so I wish I could say this is a new invention for me, but it's not. It is going back to utilizing our resources that I keep saying over and over again, and the commissioner has been clear on, we have to utilize our resources better than we have, and she's been rolling that out. From parade, you're going to be impressed on how many millions of dollars we're going to save on parade details. She's finding a better way to deploy our police personnel.

Mayor Adams: NJ.

Question: Thank you, sir.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: I'm well, thank you. [inaudible] take a moment [inaudible] to elaborate on how these bikes are being compensated, how they're being seized. We can't chase the [inaudible].

Maddrey: Yes, sir. Absolutely, we do not want our officers to chase them. We don't want to create a bigger problem by chasing them. So we just have to use different strategies. Then [inaudible], I can't let you know every one of them. I have to keep a few secrets, and one thing I do ask and I failed to mention to our neighbors, if you see any of these illegal bikes parked on city streets and housing developments in the hallways, please call us and we'll remove them.

Maddrey: But like I said, we have ways of coming up in a stealthy manner and taking the vehicles, again, without chasing them, doing it in a way where everybody is safe. That motorist has to walk away safe, the cops have to be safe, and we address it like that. So we have a lot of ways. We took 19 of them last week in the Bronx very successfully.

Question: How did you do that?

Maddrey: Again, I can't let all the secrets out, but like I said, our officers, it takes a lot of patience. Again, we can't chase them. We have to wait until they're stationary. We have to wait until they're not moving. Sometimes they get off the bike to take a break to buy a soda, to go get gas, things like that. We have to be smart and very patient and it works.

Unknown: All right, guys, this will be our last question. Rocco, Daily News.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Listen, you know not only is Pat Lynch the union president. Pat Lynch and I have always had a great relationship throughout the almost 30 years that I have known him. He's going to speak on behalf of his members, and we are going to make sure we update him on exactly what we are doing because he has to [represent his members. If you were to just throw out there, "Hey, they're going to solo patrol," without seeing the thoroughness from Chief Wilcox, then your gut automatically –  those of us know that every station should not be solo patrol.

Mayor Adams: So we're going to show how we are going to do this correctly, to go back to the days when Pat was on patrol. He knew transit police, how it was done. We look at state troopers. We talk about solo patrol. State troopers have solo patrol. So it's about doing it in a safe way. You're not endangering police officers, and you're not going to put our passengers in a place that we're not deploying our police properly.

Mayor Adams: So Pat was updated on what we were going to do. We didn't want to surprise him. We updated him on what we were going to do. He's going to speak on behalf of his members. I'm going to ensure that we protect our police officers and protect our passengers together.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Yes, yes, yes. It's about being smarter in your approach. I was on a crowded D train one day, crowded. I don't know if it was a holiday or what, and this woman got into a dispute with someone that was dating an ex-boyfriend. She tried to stab him on the train. We were in between stations. I had to wrestle with her to get the knife from her. Passengers helped to get to police. The motorman did a signal that we do when a police officer's in trouble, if there's an emergency.

Mayor Adams: There were times, 4th of July, I was in District 34. 4th of July coming from – I did 8:00 at night to 6:00 am in the morning, coming from Coney Island during late at night, riding the D train, Pat, everybody laugh about when I talk about barbecuing on a train. Somebody was on the train actually barbecuing.

Mayor Adams: After you've had a lot of beer muscles, someone telling you have to put out the barbecue wasn't a very nice interaction. So there's been moments, and there's a whole lot of moments of when you are alone, you become smarter. You know you don't want to take actions at different times. You're strategic, and riding within the district is an important attitude that Chief Wilcox stated.

Mayor Adams: We went from Coney Island to West 4th Street. We went through several districts. So we are smarter. We learned from those error, and now we're doing it in a smarter way.

Unknown: All right. Thank you, everyone.

Question: What were they cooking on the grill?

Mayor: Wasn't making hot dogs.

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