New York City Mayor Eric Adams visited the Ebbets Field Apartments Monday afternoon to assure residents he would do everything in his power to address a nightmare neighbor in apartment 11F.
The mayor's unannounced visit to the Crown Heights complex — where he once lived — comes more than three weeks after the I-Team first exposed how a year of calls to 911 had failed to produce relief from Steven Attanasso's racist rants, waving of knives, and threats to kill his Black neighbors.
"The residents there, I know very well," Mayor Adams said at a news conference, responding directly for the first time to the I-Team's questions about the situation. "It is a good, solid, working class community and I am going to stop over there."
The NYPD says Attanasso, 67, is their only suspect in a fatal arson on April 6 that killed 66-year-old Roderick Coley, a Black veteran who also lived on the 11th floor. Police sources tell the I-Team they believe the foam mattress used to set the deadly fire in the 11th floor hallway belonged to Attanasso.
Just three days before the fire, a neighbor captured Attanasso on tape saying "Black people, we're gonna burn you. You guys are really brown. When we're done with you, you'll be black!"
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Raquel Harris says she was traumatized by the fire. Harris told the I-Team she witnessed Attanasso's threats "to burn the N-words" and "make Black people blacker" and prayed for Mr. Coley when she saw responders trying to revive him.
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After meeting with Adams outside her building on Monday, Harris said "I respect the fact that he did come out," adding that the mayor promised to keep her posted.
"He gave me his number," she said.
"It's a horrific incident," said Adams. "I believe this person should be inside until he gets the care that he needs and not harm someone."
But Attanasso has not faced any charges in the arson case, which law enforcement sources admit was stalled until the I-Team investigation aired in June.
Attanasso's Legal Aid attorney has repeatedly declined the I-Team's requests for comment and several messages left at a phone number for Attanasso provided by an official building source were not returned.
Several times over the past year, after responding to 911 calls, police from the 71st Precinct brought Attanasso to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and arrested him on knife-related weapons charges. But his neighbors complained that each time, he would quickly be sent home.
And without solid proof that he set the fire, the current misdemeanor weapons charges do not enable a judge to keep him behind bars nor set bail.
After the I-Team questioned why no hate crime charges had been pursued, which can elevate penalties in racially motivated crimes, the Brooklyn district attorney's office said it had opened a separate new investigation into whether any of Attanasso's lower-level alleged offenses could be prosecuted as hate crimes. The NYPD also announced in early July that its Hate Crimes Task Force had picked up this case.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, as part of her 2022 changes to the bail laws, restored judges’ ability to set bail in cases where a defendant is accused of a hate crime, according to her staff. The mayor and his staff have not responded to specific questions about why the NYPD did not do their part to seek hate crime charges.
"It's clear this person is dealing with some mental health issues," Adams said Monday.
Adams added the situation in the Ebbets Field Apartments is a classic example of the problems with New York's mental health system that he has been trying to change. Specifically, Adams has argued that psychiatric hospitals are overly reluctant to keep someone involuntarily for more than 72 hours — which under state law, requires doctors to determine that the patient has a mental health diagnosis and presents a risk to themselves or others.
In a controversial push in 2022, Adams and Hochul worked to convince mental health providers that the "risk" in these cases does not have to be imminent to keep someone hospitalized longer.
"This should resonate with every New Yorker," Adams said of the Ebbets Field situation. "This is what I said and we're seeing over and over again why I was taking that position."
But some critics have asked whether the NYPD explained Attanasso's whole backstory to the psychiatric hospitals when they dropped him off, and suggested the Adams administration could have been more proactive by engaging the type of mobile mental health teams or community based social workers they use with the homeless.
"Police did arrests. They moved him to a facility. The doctors decide whether someone is released or not," said Adams.
The mayor added that he would consult with his Health Commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, to see what the city did and whether more could have been done.
Since the fire, tenants say they have been terrified for their safety. They say they turned over multiple recordings of Attanasso's threats to detectives and do not understand why the case seemed to get no attention for many weeks until the I-Team report.
MTA worker Cynthia Stephens, who has filed police reports about Attanasso, says the mayor's visit was a step in the right direction.
"He listened to me and asked me questions," Stephens said. "Him being here, it made us know that he is going to look into it now. He was even saying he would work with the DA."
Anthony Armstrong said while he appreciates the mayor's visit, he hopes it will produce results, not just good will and the appearance of taking action.
"He seems like a nice guy. I'd like to shake his hand and smell each other's cologne. That's cool. But we need action," said Armstrong.
