Three days after the world witnessed video of the indefensible beating of Tyre Nichols by the Memphis Police Department’s Scorpion unit, New York City Mayor Eric Adams defended the existence of specialized policing units on CNN.
“Units don’t create abuse, abusive behavior creates abuse,” said Adams, who spent 22 years with the NYPD. He added that the officers who beat Nichols betrayed those who wore the uniform.
Anyone who followed Adams’ rise in politics shouldn’t be shocked by any defense of the police. He rode into his current job with a tough-on-crime platform. During his campaign, he defended the NYPD’s use of stop and frisk, calling it a “great tool” if used right. He also decried defunding the police, telling Bloomberg News: “I have never been in a neighborhood meeting in a high-crime community of color where someone has asked for fewer police.”
And with his first big public safety move, Adams brought back the NYPD “anti-crime” unit, a controversial unit that — not unlike Memphis’ Scorpion cops — would be asked to deal with a spike in violent crime.
Before being relaunched — and rebranded the “Neighborhood Safety Teams” — anti-crime was disbanded in 2020. Over the years, NYPD’s anti-crime cops were responsible for a disproportionate number of police killings, including Amadou Diallo in 1999 — who was shot by police 41 times on his apartment stoop. A state’s attorney general report found that from 2000 to 2018, they were responsible for a third of the NYPD killings, despite accounting for 6 percent of the force.
When Adams introduced his new unit, he talked about it similarly to how he spoke of specialized groups of cops after Nichols’ death. He said those selected would have “the right mindset, the right disposition and be, as I say all the time, emotionally intelligent.”
As quickly they ushered anti-crime cops back into the fold, Adams’ administration hid who these officers actually were. In spring 2022, the city denied public records requests from journalists to learn which officers were on the Neighborhood Safety Teams, claiming that revealing them could “endanger” their “life or safety.”
But a reporter for NYFocus.com obtained and published a list of officers who underwent its training program. The reporter found that “13 percent of the officers who have taken both courses have at least five complaints” of abuse and “eight of the officers have at least 10.”
Allowing officers with histories of egregious misconduct to be a part of the Neighborhood Safety Team suggests what Adams said about picking officers with the “right mindset” was somewhat hollow. And if the mayor believes what he says about police accountability, he should step up and reveal who they all are and what they are doing.
In his recent CNN interview, Adams credited bringing back anti-crime cops with helping to get 7,000 guns off New York City’s streets last year. That is an impressive feat that should be commended. But the city has not said how many guns were retrieved by Neighborhood Safety Teams.
The only reports on the unit’s performance were not stellar. The New York Post found that in its first couple of weeks, the Neighborhood Safety Team mainly was pulling over people for minor infractions, including tinted windows and bogus license plates. As for guns, the Post revealed they had recovered only three in as many weeks. A few months later, the NYPD put out data claiming the Neighborhood Safety Teams made 448 arrests in its first two months. But as for firearm charges — the teams’ stated goal — just 86 people (less than 20 percent) were arrested and faced gun charges.
The mysteries around this so-called elite unit of gun cops are just one example of how the NYPD has not met the mark with its transparency efforts.
On January 26, Adams took the stage at the Queens Theater to give his State of the City address as Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” filled the auditorium. He began by saying “we have climbed a lot of mountains” during his first year in office. When he spoke about his vision for safer communities, he said he plans to expand the Neighborhood Safety Teams across the city.
During his speech, the mayor did express a desire to “break down barriers” between communities and the police. “Let’s stop starting off hating each other and start embracing each other,” he said. If that is indeed what he wants, the mayor should take some steps around transparency and stop hiding who the members of this NYPD gun task force are.
