Mayoral hopefuls spar over police, crime in wake of Times Square shooting
The shocking shooting of three people in Times Square prompted the city’s mayoral hopefuls to weigh in on controversial police reform on Sunday, with the front-runners in the race denouncing the movement to defund police and sparring over whose crimefighting proposals are the strongest.
Stray bullets struck two women and a 4-year-old girl on Saturday afternoon at the popular tourist destination when an argument escalated into gunfire among several men, and the horrific incident fueled the political debate over how to quell the city’s violent surge.
Candidate Andrew Yang criticized the movement to defund police, drawing a stinging rebuke from rival Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, who cast Yang as a Johnny-come-lately to the issue.
“New York City cannot afford to defund the police,” Yang said on Sunday near the scene of the shooting. “When I talk to New Yorkers, I get a very different message every single day.”
The candidate’s remarks were his strongest to date in support of the NYPD. They came amid calls from some of his rivals to cut billions of dollars from the Police Department budget, a position inspired by last year’s protests over the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by Minneapolis police.
“Nothing works in our city without public safety, and for public safety we need the police,” said Yang, who added that he lives near Times Square.
“My message to the NYPD is this: New York needs you, your city needs you. We need you to do your jobs professionally, responsibly and justly,” he added. “I will have your back.”
His remarks drew a scathing response from Adams who, speaking at Times Square a few hours later, criticized Yang’s response to violence when it struck close to home.
“You know what, Andrew? These shootings have been happening blocks from my house for years and blocks from the houses of poorer New Yorkers for years,” said Adams, a former NYPD captain campaigning as a “working-class” candidate.
“It is time for us to recognize it when it is in every square block of our city,” he said. “Shame on you for not realizing that.”
As of last Sunday, the city had 132 homicides, according to the NYPD, up 17% from 113 during the same time frame last year. Shootings have surged, with 463 victims as of last Sunday. There were 259 during the same period last year, a spike of 79%.
A new poll last week showed Adams moving ahead of Yang, a businessman who gained national prominence during his unsuccessful 2020 run for president, to take the lead in the race for the first time.
Adams has promised to reconstitute the NYPD’s controversial anti-crime unit — shut down after years of criticism for its aggressive tactics — with a focus on finding shooters and illegal guns. He has proposed better police training, too.
Yang aired a similar idea on Sunday, saying his proposed “anti-violence and community safety unit” would crack down on guns. He also said he would temporarily boost the number of officers in neighborhoods hardest hit by crime.
Progressive candidates Dianne Morales and Maya Wiley have proposed massive NYPD budget cuts — Morales wants a $3 billion reduction, while Wiley is calling for a $1 billion trim.
Contender Shaun Donovan also has promised to remove about $3 billion from the city’s public safety budget.
They each have said the funds would be better spent on services to communities.
Wiley on Sunday condemned the Times Square violence, promising to focus on keeping illegal guns off the streets while making New Yorkers “safe from police misconduct.”
“We are not sufficiently tackling gun violence in our communities, in our city,” the former top legal aide to Mayor de Blasio said following remarks to a Brooklyn church congregation.
In a tweet, Morales described the shooting as “a painful reminder that we need bigger solutions than the police.”
She has proposed creation of a “Community First Responders Department” to deal with mental health and other emergencies.
Also on Twitter, candidate Kathryn Garcia, former sanitation commissioner under de Blasio, said: “We all need to feel safe on our streets, in our neighborhoods, in our homes—no matter what zip code you live in.
“Recovery is dependent on public safety. We have to get this right,” she said.
Garcia has proposed using statistical analysis to improve the targeting efforts of “violence interrupter” programs, and she shied away from talk of defunding the NYPD at a recent candidates forum.
Ray McGuire, a former vice chairman for banking giant Citigroup, echoed Yang’s comments, saying that “the fix isn’t to defund and disarm” the NYPD.
He also has promised to increase the number of cops charged with getting guns off city streets.
Donovan, who ran the Office of Management and Budget under former President Barack Obama and was former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s housing commissioner, called the shooting a “terrible act of violence.”
He has said he would use his connections to the Biden White House to reduce the flow of guns into the Big Apple.
The union of NYPD sergeants, meanwhile, blamed the mayor and City Council, tweeting that “Business Lives Matter.”
The restaurant Tito Murphy’s on W. 46th St. had 60 reservation cancellations after the Times Square violence, the Sergeants Benevolent Association raged on Twitter.
“Mayor de Blasio and the NYC Council take a bow for as the promoters of incompetence!” the union said.
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