Transcript: Mayor Adams Participates in Ethnic Media Engagement With Rampa TV and Radio

November 27, 2024

Monika Adamski: Rampa TV guest is the mayor of the City of New York, Mr. Eric Adams. Welcome, mayor.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Great to be here. Great to have you here. 

Adamski: I'm actually thinking, yes, thank you for having us, I should say. Mr. Mayor, you speak to me regularly, which is a great sign of your respect for ethnic communities, but I'm very thankful that you agreed to sit down with me because this is the first.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Adamski: Thank you. And I wanted to start off with asking you about what you consider your biggest accomplishment in terms of relations with Polish-American community, because you've been close with this community for a long time, even before you became mayor. What do you consider your biggest accomplishment in this area?

Mayor Adams: And, you know, I hear that question often when I speak to the various ethnic communities in the city. And it is not like we could just swoop in and take an ethnic community out of the city. I think the accomplishment that we have carried out on public safety. 

When I speak with my Polish-Americans, they are clear that they want a safe city. And that's the foundation that allows for business to thrive, for our children to enjoy the city, for our elderly to be able to move about in a safe way. And I think when you think about that area of safety, that is my biggest accomplishment. We drove down crime for 10 straight months, we moved thousands of illegal guns off our streets and that allowed the city to grow and prosper.

Adamski: And definitely I'm going to come back to that topic of safety. But before that, I wanted to ask you about today, because you're hosting [the] first ever Polish Heritage Breakfast here at Gracie Mansion, which is a big deal for our community.

Mayor Adams: Yes, and you know, what's interesting about that, why really the ethnic media and opening City Hall to all ethnic groups is important. The role of mayor is both symbolism and substance. Substance is the safety, the jobs, the businesses. But the symbolism of saying you are welcome into this city is to do things like this. And I would not be aware of many of the issues impacting the Polish community if you are not at my off topics, if I don't see you at the press conferences. 

Historically, you were not allowed into that room for the most part. And when I opened the door and allowed the various ethnic medias inside, they're asking me questions about their community. Hey, can we light the building a certain color? Can you come to march in our parade? Can you honor us at Gracie Mansion? That is why you must be in the room. If you're not at the table, then you're on the menu, they say.

Adamski: That is very true. So this event here today, what do you look most forward to?

Mayor Adams: This event that we're doing today, number one, we're opening the People’s House. Gracie Mansion is the residence of the mayor. We're opening to the Polish community. And this is an opportunity to celebrate and lift up the Polish culture and have conversations about the Polish community's contribution, not only during current times, but there's a reason we have a Pulaski Bridge. There's a reason we talk about the contribution of Polish Americans to this country. And coming here today is our way and opportunity of celebrating and lifting up the Polish community and their contributions. 

Adamski: During your campaign as a mayor, you promised me in an interview that you will incorporate knowledge about Polish Americans in the New York City Public Schools curriculum. And we've spoke about it before, and you did. You did some elements of that. That is really important. Can you talk about that?

Mayor Adams: Yes, and it's to grow, because in a city like New York, as diverse as it is, when a young Polish child sits in a classroom, they should see themselves in the history and their contribution. Because that tells the young person that's next to him, that may be from another community or another ethnic group, that we have common grounds, because everyone that is here participated in here. And it was significant and important to me that we incorporate some form of education, and we want to continue to evolve and have more, but some form of education of the contribution of Polish Americans.

Adamski: Mr. Mayor, safety and crime. We had recently tragic incidents in this city. The three people are dead because of the stabbings, then the police officer was shot. Of course, this city is filled with news like this. But I wanted to ask you, Mr. Mayor, today, because you said at the last press conference with regards to these incidents, that you plan on speaking with the state legislature about the mental health care reform. But do you also plan on speaking to them or talking to them about the criminal justice system reform?

Mayor Adams: Yes, and it was a horrific incident to have three New Yorkers slain in that way. My heart goes out to the family. One of them had an eight-year-old child that was left without a mother. That's devastating. And I respond to these jobs often. We have a city of 8.3 million people. And I just like to always set the record clear. We're the safest big city in America. 

And when you have a city this large and many people dealing with criminal actions and mental health issues, you have these horrific incidents that take place. But that is not the trademark of our city. Our city is safe, it's functioning. And we must look at those with severe mental health issues, as I have been talking about, how do we get them the care, the support that they need, so we don't have incidents like this. 

But in addition to that, we have too many repeated criminal offenders that are participating in violent acts. And I want us, when we go to Albany this year, to look at the repeated offender. They made some changes in our criminal justice, in our laws around public safety. We need to zero in on those repeated offenders.

Adamski: Exactly what you said with recidivism is the biggest problem this city has. But in these specific two instances, is it no cash bail reform? Because like, with the three stabbings, this person was in jail for eight months for the crimes committed, then was released and caught again because he stole a $1,500 vase. 

And the judge decided to release him without bail. This is something that is bothering a lot of people because this person had a very bad record and the judges should have more decision-making powers with the reform of the no cash bail. So where was the fault here, the judge or the system?

Mayor Adams: No, and it is easy to point the finger at one or two individuals or one or two places in our criminal justice system. That system is made up of the prosecutors, of the police and the judge. All of us must take accountability when you lose the lives of three innocent people or one innocent person. What we must do is do an analysis of what happened here. 

And what we have identified, is that there must be a better way to acknowledge when someone deals with a severe mental health issue based on their history. This person here, he was arrested, he was released, he was arrested the next day. Right then, we should have done an analysis of his mental health capacity. Judges can order that. We have not been doing that in the past. We need to examine that and look at other ways we could not allow people to slip through the cracks.

Adamski: And as you know, Mr. Mayor, with the second case that I talked about when the police officer was hurt, the person responsible for that, he was a murderer. He was accused of a murder. And he was on the streets. And I'm just asking you from the point of our community, like you always say, that's what people talk about on the street. How would you explain to them that this person was on the street and what steps you plan on taking? You go to Albany, you will see, you said, but just how would you respond to people who are just now afraid of sitting outside?  

Mayor Adams: And this person was on what's called lifetime parole. And he committed several crimes while on lifetime parole. That can't happen. And that goes back to what I've stated over and over again, it's a continuous recidivist. A person like him was extremely dangerous, had no regard for life. He shot an innocent woman. I stopped to visit her and her family when she was in the hospital. That is where we need help. We need parole boards to violate those who commit crimes when they're on parole, to send the right message. And we need to make sure that judges hold them accountable.

Adamski: So that is a state law issue?

Mayor Adams: Yes, that's a state law.

Adamski: And are you going to advocate for the changes in that?

Mayor Adams: I'm going to strongly advocate. But the law is already in place. The parole board, when he goes in front of his parole officer, the parole officer should have violated him. We saw that he committed several crimes after being out on lifetime parole. He should have been violated. So the law was in place. It was a failure to execute that law.

Adamski: It's been a week. I know it's a short time, but it's also a long time. Is there any updates to the investigation into that, these two incidents?

Mayor Adams: Well, as you know, the person committed the crime, police officers took it. And so it's still currently under investigation, it's going to go through the process. But we want the parole board and those who make those decisions to hold people accountable when they commit crimes.

Adamski: Crimes, safety. The new police commissioner was just sworn, Jessica Tisch. And I wanted to ask you about the way you modernize the Police Department, you, but also the commissioners that were working with you. And I want you to speak about those improvements. What do you consider the greatest tool now that is available to the NYPD? 

And also, this was really good on the perspective of our community, the gun detectors in the subway. We know that the first software maybe was not what you were looking for, but can you talk about that? What are the tools that you consider the most useful and the most changing that you hope will change the NYPD?

Mayor Adams: Well, the most important tool we have, I believe, are the men and women who are out there every day running towards danger while others are running away. They took an oath to serve and protect, and they're doing that. As I stated, we have an unprecedented decrease in crime on our subway system. Robberies are at the lowest in recorded history. What we're doing around gun violence, the number of guns we've removed off the streets. So the men and women are important.  

But the introduction, what I'm excited about, is the introduction of technology. Number one, gun detection technology is extremely important. It's going to continue to get better and better. With the introduction of artificial intelligence, I think we're only at the beginning of the ability to detect firearms on people who are illegally carrying these guns. 

But also the use of drones. I'm excited about the use of drones. It gives us a view from the sky. Historically, we patrolled our streets only on the ground level, but now with drones we're able to look at subway surfers to save over 100 lives from subway surfing. We're able to make sure we monitor crowds and protests. We're able to go after those who are carrying out illegal actions. So when you start to marry the drones with weapon detection and other ways of deploying our personnel beforehand, you're beginning to see an entirely new phase of policing.

Adamski: Any deadline on the new gun detector system on the subway?

Mayor Adams: We looked at people that say, well, you haven't detected any guns. But the goal is to deter people from bringing guns on the system. And so we could, as you see, there are a large number of people who are slashed and cut. That is why we found many people carrying knives and weapons on the system. 

That is the road to keep illegal and dangerous weapons off our system. We're doing a final analysis to determine how exactly, how great it performed, because we must get it right, because this is a major introduction and investment in our system.

Adamski: Mr. Mayor, you said in your remarks after election results that you are not surprised that the Democrats are losing support in New York City, simply because the far left agenda that they've been talking and you've been talking about for a long time is the problem where we're not focusing on working class people. You said that explicitly. You say you take steps to focus on working class people. Mr. Mayor, which goals would you want to achieve, but you could not maybe before, and you plan on achieving with the new upcoming administration, which definitely is very much opposed to far left?

Mayor Adams: Well, any extreme view is not going to focus on where Americans and New Yorkers are. New Yorkers and Americans are concerned about public safety, as we just talked about. They want to be safe. They want to remove the over proliferation of guns off our streets, and we need to focus on that. But there's also affordability. People are afraid of, do they have a future for their children? We need to find creative ways of making sure we make this city and this country more affordable. 

And there are common denominators. Republicans believe in tax break for working class people. We believe in that at the same time. So let's move forward in doing so. Republican believe in having safe cities and streets. We believe in that. So let's move forward in doing so. Republicans believe healthcare is too high. We believe in that. So what we must do, and my desire to do with this administration, is to say, let's find a common ground. Those things we believe together and find answers to them.

Adamski: And I always hear you saying that, that you believe in common ground, that you care about the city of New York. And I feel like this is not exactly the political lines that some would want you to follow or any politicians basically with any party to follow. And I was wondering, do you feel this is costing you politically?

Mayor Adams: No, no, I don't. I believe to the contrary. We saw what happened here in the city of how many people are not embracing the far left agenda of defunding police officers, of allowing repeated offenders to return to our streets. That is not what everyday New Yorkers and Americans want. I don't think it's costing me politically. I think that I'm standing up for the people that I promised to serve and protect for my days of a police officer. 

That's what I did when I went to Washington and fought against the over-saturation of our city with migrants and asylum seekers without any financial help. I said I was not going to sit back and allow this to happen to our city. And that's what costs you when you become a target because you speak out against something like that. But I'm going to continue to stand up for what's right for New Yorkers and not put my finger in the air and see where the wind is blowing and what's politically profitable for me. I'm going to stand up for what's right for New Yorkers.

Adamski: It's a beautiful way, I think, to sum this up, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much for speaking to me. Thank you. 

Mayor Adams: Yes, thank you.

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