It took a while, the counting was chaotic, but more than two weeks after the election, a winner now seems to have been determined. After the US media declared the Democratic mayor’s area code in New York to be decided after almost all of the votes had been counted, ex-police officer Eric Adams declared himself the winner on Tuesday evening (local time).
Adams, the first black district president of the borough of Brooklyn, is thus the likely next mayor of the metropolis. The actual election will take place in November, but the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa is not expected to have any chances in liberal New York. Adams would be the second black mayor of New York after David Dinkins (1990-93).
According to US media, the black ex-cop Eric Adams won
Gigantic tasks await the 60-year-old, who has prevailed against former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, among others. As a former police officer, many voters believe that he is the most likely to be able to react to the currently escalating gun violence in New York. This has more than doubled in the past year, which the outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio attributes to the pandemic that hit America’s largest city particularly hard.
The situation is so dramatic that the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, also declared a “disaster” on Tuesday – as the first state in the USA. “If you look at the current figures, more people are now dying from gun violence and crime than from Covid. This is a national problem, but someone has to act now and address this problem – our future depends on it, ”said Cuomo.
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Therefore, among other things, a special police unit is to be created to combat the trade in firearms and a lot of money is to be invested in prevention programs. For example, $ 76 million has been earmarked to create jobs for young people.
Is the violence keeping New Yorkers out of their city?
Gun violence in New York City has increased sharply since the spring of 2020, when the pandemic began. According to police, at least 687 people had been injured or killed by firearms by June 6, compared with 409 in the same period of the previous year.
Cuomo also warned Tuesday that fear of violence was preventing people from returning to their city jobs. With his numbers, he contradicted de Blasio, who had previously warned against “scaremongering” and said that in June 2021 there had been a fifth fewer shootings than in June 2020.
Adams wants to carry a gun as mayor
Either way: The security question in New York becomes one of the primary responsibilities of the potential new mayor. Adams addressed security in public spaces more than the other candidates during the election campaign. For himself he has announced that as mayor he wants to carry a gun – as a former police officer he is allowed to do so.
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At the same time, he promised to give New York back to the long-neglected New Yorkers that the city needed justice and security. Since he was ill-treated by the police himself as a teenager and only became a police officer to reform the system from within, he was apparently seen as credible here. With this double message, he scored points against competitors on the left, who primarily placed the violence on the part of the police at the center of their campaigns and called for the funds earmarked for the security authorities to be used differently.
New York City’s budget is just under $ 100 billion
As the campaign draws to a close, Adam’s supporters touted that he knew best what could be done about violence. “As a former police officer, he understands the needs of the local people,” said the African American Jackie Kennedy Sadeler at one of his last appearances in Brooklyn in mid-June. Her friend Cheryl Anthony added, “He is battle-tested, empathetic and has the stamina to lead the city in these dangerous times.”
As mayor, Adams would be responsible for a budget close to $ 100 billion. It was only in June that de Blasio raised funds for the New York Police Department by $ 200 million – just a year after he saw their budget in the wake of the “Black Lives Matter” protests and calls within the Democratic Party to withdraw funds from the police cut by a billion. De Blasio, who was not allowed to run again after two legislative terms and is leaving at the end of the year, is now considered extremely unpopular with New Yorkers.
America’s cities are increasingly suffering from gun violence
Gun violence has also increased dramatically in other major American cities in recent months. On the long weekend around the national holiday on July 4th alone, at least 189 people died nationwide, as the radio station NPR reported on Tuesday, citing figures from the “Gun Violence Archive”. At least 516 people were injured in more than 540 incidents within 72 hours.
There are many indications that the situation will get worse: politicians and security experts are already warning of a “bloody summer”, also because more and more Americans are buying weapons.
US President Joe Biden has announced that he will do everything possible to end the “epidemic of gun violence in America”. But the Democratic majority in Congress is extremely tight, and the chances of major reforms are not good. The Republicans are opposed to decisive restrictions on the acquisition and possession of weapons. The right to carry a weapon is enshrined in the second amendment to the US Constitution.
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