Last weekend’s Criminal Justice Summit, put together by New York City Mayor Eric Adams makes clear he will continue to fail the city that he swore to protect.
Prior to Adam’s election, this writer tried to be as optimistic as possible, even though I knew he was never a rising star in the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
However, he did work for former-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and me, when I was police commissioner, when New York witnessed the biggest reduction in violent crime and murder in its history.
Adams had been a member of the NYPD prior to Giuliani taking over in 1994 when we were averaging more than 2000 murders per year, and were considered America's murder capital.
He worked through the broken windows theory of policing, and watched the Compstat System, created by former New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton and former Gotham deputy police commissioner Jack Maple, hold members of the department accountable — to do their jobs.
Evidently, he either wasn’t paying attention, or his inability to ignore radical left-wing policies is now responsible for returning New York to the cesspool it was in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Adams' weekend summit included members of law-enforcement, district attorneys, judges, and advocacy group leaders who supposedly discussed the criminal justice system in New York City.
Former Mayors Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg were not invited.
Nor was I, or former police commissioners Bill Bratton and Raymond Kelly.
Also missing was Chief Joe Esposito, who served under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg.
Esposito was the longest serving chief of the department in the NYPD's history.
During this devastating crime wave, Adams purposely left out the most effective leaders, that is those who who would have been responsible for orchestrating the most substantial reductions in violent crime in U.S. history.
Missing, were the leaders actually responsible for creating New York's renaissance.
Under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, violent crime was reduced by 70%; murders dropped by nearly 80%.
Had any of us been invited, this is what Adams would have been asked:
- "Why are there 6,000 less police officers today, 21 years after I retired from the NYPD?"
- "Why are cops quitting in record numbers?"
- "Why are we having such difficulty recruiting men and women to join the NYPD?"
The answers are simple:
- No one wants to work for a city where the council calls for police defunding.
- No one wants to work for a police department refusing to support and indemnify its police officers.
- No one wants to work where the governor and district attorneys support thugs and target officers.
Why hasn’t Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., repealed the bail reform act; a measure keeping thugs on the streets and taking away the discretion of judges, when criminal defendants are brought before them?
Even the mayor himself criticized the law because it enhances recidivism.
Yet, he and the governor have yet to do anything about it.
Adams may want to look at the crime statistics and see that 80% of the thugs locked up on gun charges are released back into the streets as a result of bail reform laws.
That's inexcusable, and so is the fact that Gov. Hochul has done nothing about it.
One of the things that came up during the summit was the clogging up of the court system.
That also was a problem we solved.
Giuliani made sure that district attorneys got the money they needed to hire deputy district attorneys. He made sure the judges weren’t sitting on cases, and "America's Mayor" put the money into the corrections department; funds which were needed, as we were responsbile for some 133,000 inmate admissions per year.
This writer might add, we reduced the rate of inmate violence at Rikers island — by 93%.
Adams needs to cease with committees, symposiums, summits and photo-ops in the subways. He needs to stop politicking, standing at the podium flashing expensive suits.
In short, he needs to get to work. That is what Giuliani did.
Call everyone from the police commissioner to city hall.
Let's get much needed funding, to hire 6,000 to 10,000 new police officers.
Make your voices heard, loudly, to your city council members who have called for the elimination of immunity for police officers.
Give officers a contract and they can live with and live on.
Let them go do the job they've sworn to do.
Tell the governor to do her job too and repeal the bail reform law.
If she refuses, endorse Lee Zeldin; this writer is certain he's ultimately going to do so.
Let's get rid of district attorneys who love criminals more than they do law enforcement.
Start refurbishing the Rikers Island; start filling it up with people who don’t belong at liberty on our streets.
If we do this, just like Giuliani did back in the 1990s and 2000s, and Bloomberg did for the 12 years following, New York will return to its rightful state as the global capital.
No one wants to live, work, visit, or go to school in a place that isn't safe.
Gotham gets less safe by the day.
Unless that changes, real estate values, economic development, and tourism in New York City will evaporate.
Forever.
Bernard B. Kerik was the 40th Police Commissioner of the New York City Police Department and is a New York Times bestselling author. Read Bernard Kerik's Reports — More Here.