The new mayor of New York Eric Adams promised Monday to rid the American megalopolis of firearms. He decided to deploy plainclothes police to the streets after a spate of violence that claimed the life of a young officer.
“Gun violence is a public health crisis that continues to threaten every corner of the city,” said the former African-American police officer when announcing a series of measures.
“Public safety is my administration’s top priority and that is why we will take guns off our streets, protect our people, and create a safe, prosperous, and just city for all New Yorkers,” said this elected representative of the right wing of the Democratic Party.
Violence on the rise
Arrived at the town hall on January 1 with a program to fight against insecurity and socio-economic inequalities, Eric Adams is faced with an upsurge in violent miscellaneous events.
On Friday, a 22-year-old New York police officer was killed and another seriously injured in an exchange of gunfire at an apartment in Harlem, in northern Manhattan. A week earlier in the same neighborhood, a 19-year-old Puerto Rican was shot dead by a robber in a fast food restaurant.
Pushed under a subway
On January 15, a 40-year-old Asian American woman was killed by a psychiatric homeless man who pushed her onto a subway track as the train entered the Times Square station. This murder, without a weapon, marked the spirits, as much as the injuries inflicted on an 11-month-old girl hit by a stray bullet in the Bronx, while she was in the car with her mother.
One of the key measures of his plan is the reinstatement of plainclothes police patrols, ‘anti-crime units’ renamed ‘anti-gun units’ which were cut in 2020 following the death of the African American George Floyd, killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.
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