NYC Mayor Adams slams courts over bond for suspect in Bronx shooting of NYPD officer
The same day the widow of fallen NYPD Officer Jason Rivera called out the Manhattan District Attorney for his lenient approach to crime, Mayor Adams voiced outrage over news that a teen suspected of shooting another cop was released on bond Friday.
The suspect, Camrin Williams, was let go from a Brooklyn juvenile lock-up after posting $250,000 bond. Williams, 16, is an up-and-coming rapper known as C Blu and is accused of shooting Officer Kaseem Penman in the Bronx last week.
“New Yorkers should all be outraged that a repeat offender, accused of shooting at a police officer, is today walking free on bond because judges are precluded from even considering danger to the community, like every other state and our federal courts,” Adams said in a written statement. “It is further proof that our current system is failing us.”
His broadside at the court system came just hours after he attended a St. Patrick’s Cathedral funeral service for Rivera, who was killed late last Friday night responding to a domestic disturbance call. Rivera’s partner, Officer Wilbert Mora, was also shot and died days later.
The man who killed them, Lashawn McNeil, died days later from gun shot wounds he suffered that night.
Since the tragic shoot-out in Harlem, the mayor has argued that when setting bail, judges need to be given the ability to consider the level of danger a suspect could pose upon release. On Friday, he pointed to the release of Williams as another example of why.
Williams’ attorney Dawn Florio pushed back, saying she doesn’t think “the mayor even knows what happened.”
“My client didn’t shoot a police officer. He never pointed a gun. He never had a gun in his hand,” she said. “Police officers jumped on top of him and that’s how the gun went off and the bullet hit my client in the groin and went out through his thigh and grazed the leg of the police officer.
“My client is a victim as well as the police officer,” she said.
Florio noted that she has received body camera footage of the incident from Bronx prosecutors, but cannot share it as it is under a protective order.
Adams has not just focused on how judges set bail for suspects. He has called for the city’s district attorneys to step up in the effort to stem gun violence. And though he has not criticized Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg directly, he has said that DAs need to do their part, too — just weeks after Bragg released a statement saying he would refrain from prosecuting certain offenses in an effort to make the criminal justice system more fair.
Those policies have come under fire from critics who believe they are too lenient. And one of those critics is Dominique Luzuriaga, the widow of Rivera, who called out Bragg at her slain husband’s funeral Friday.
Luzuriaga said she hoped Bragg was watching Rivera “speak through me right now” as the DA sat silent just steps away from her as she eulogized her husband in the cathedral.
“The system continues to fail us. We are not safe anymore, not even the members of the service,” she said through tears. “I know you were tired of these laws, especially the ones from the new DA.”
Adams made no mention of Bragg at Rivera’s funeral. Instead, he reserved his criticism for the courts.
“Today of all days, with the city in mourning over the deaths of Detective First-Grade Jason Rivera and Police Officer Wilbert Mora, we all must come together and agree that changes are needed,” he said. “We cannot allow those who carry guns to walk free. We can pursue safety and justice at the same time, and we must, for the safety of all of us.”
