The NYPD needs to "gain the city back," and doing so starts with tackling quality-of-life issues like robberies and gun violence, Mayor Eric Adams said Friday.
"It's about going down and dealing with the quality-of-life issues we're seeing, what's happening in drugstores where people are taking things and walking out, what's happening with the gun violence that we're seeing, and what's happening with the everyday quality of life in this city, and that's the plan we're putting in place to address it," Adams said in an interview with Today in New York.
The mayor's comments come one day after President Joe Biden visited New York City to meet with Adams and others and discuss the city's growing gun violence problem.
Major crimes rose 39% in New York City in January versus a year earlier, as every key category rose sharply except for murder. Shooting incidents rose 32%.
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No one has been immune; six NYPD cops were shot in the city since Jan. 1, two of them fatally.
As Adams tries to get the crime situation under control, challenges brew on multiple fronts - the "iron pipeline" of trafficked guns into the city, the war over bail reform and recidivism, and in Manhattan particularly, the new DA's policies limiting or softening some criminal prosecutions, like armed robberies.
