Mayor Adams Tells Jewish Media He will, "Zero in on Hate Crimes"

By Yehudit Garmaise 

“We are going to zero in on the hate crimes we are seeing,” is how Mayor Eric Adams responded on Monday in City Hall when a BoroPark24 reporter asked him, “How can the residents of Boro Park stay safe in light of the recent hate crimes?”

Mayor Adams expressed the inspiration he draws from the volunteer security organizations that he said he wants to replicate in other communities citywide.

“You [The Orthodox Jewish community] have been amazing around safety patrol,” Mayor Adams told BoroPark24 at an exclusive City Hall roundtable discussion held just for Jewish media. “We are going to duplicate those patrols and ambulance services. 

“I don’t know another community that has created volunteer patrols as well as you have.

Mayor Adams then said that he wants other communities to build similar neighborhood infrastructures in the same ways in which the Orthodox Jewish communities have done. 

“The more good guys we have on the streets, the more the bad guys are going to be stopped.”

While Adams said the NYPD is doing its part to significantly decrease shootings and homicides in the city, the mayor said he “needs his judges to help him in court, he needs his prosecutors to prosecute cases, and I need legislators to help me with some of these [bail] laws that are really allowing dangerous people to continue to do dangerous things in our city.”

While New Yorkers continue to wait for judges, prosecutors, and lawmakers to combine forces to ensure public safety for New Yorkers, “[Police officers] are going to continue to do their jobs,” Mayor Adams said.

Thanks to the NYPD’s hard work, New Yorkers did not see the violence that many feared would erupt in late summer in NYC.

“Everyone thought August was going to be one of the bloodiest months, but, [thankfully], last month did not turn out to be that way, although the headlines of most papers would tell you differently.”

The NYPD has been successful in its focus to decrease both the city’s shootings and the homicides, said Mayor Adams.

“We are making a record number of arrests for felonies and a record number of gun seizures: We have taken 5,000 guns off the streets [this year],” said the mayor, who added that the NYPD is also going to continue to crack down on criminals who commit petty offenses, as well as criminal ones. 

“We still have some real work to do around public safety, and every day, Commissioner Keechant Sewell and I are making sure we are safe as a city.

“Public safety is crucial.”

Photos by: Dovid Y Jaroslawicz