Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday crowed about the decrease in city murders and shootings last month compared to June 2021 — even as other major crimes soared — and vowed “to turn this crime thing around.”
Adams, speaking on WBLS radio, blamed the state of the violence-wracked city on a criminal-justice system-run-amok.
“It is unfortunate the climate we’re working under … where the entire criminal-justice apparatus has turned away from the public and the rights of the public to live safe in their city,” Hizzoner.
“We took almost 3,800 guns off the streets, and many of the people who had carried those guns were able to return to the streets,” he said.
Adams noted that Big Apple shootings and homicides were down 24.2% and 31.6% respectively in June compared to the same month last year but added that “predatory crimes” such as robberies and burglaries still need to be addressed.
The city’s crime index, which measures such major crimes, rose overall more than 30 percent last month over June 2021.
“We’re witnessing a decrease in shootings, a decrease in homicides, but it’s more than that, it’s the robberies, the burglaries,” Adams said.
“We’re going to turn this crime thing around, and when we do so, people are going to really see the progress we’ve made in other parts of the city.
“Public safety and justice are prerequisites for prosperity. If you’re not safe you really can’t thrive. … Public safety is crucial,” Adams said.
“Crime has really taken all of the oxygen out of the room.”
The mayor lamented the cycle of “catch, release and repeat” involving criminal suspects and called the court’s backlog of cases and how judges and prosecutors handle them “extremely unfortunate.”
Adams said his administration has made progress in how it is dealing with the city’s homeless crisis in the subways.
During the first week of his subway safety plan, which aims to crack down on rule breakers underground and move the chronically homeless inside, Adams said just 22 people agreed to enter the shelter system and that number has since jumped to over 1,700.
“We are seeing some successes, you’re seeing you go into the subway system, now you’re not seeing encampments anywhere. … A lot of those [who] were living in that inhumane condition… [are now] moving in the direction of permanent housing,” Adams said.
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