Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams, a retired New York City Police Department Captain, today railed into both police for treating young people of color with excessive force, and lawless demonstrators spitting on police, vandalizing property and jumping subway turnstiles en masse in protest of the police use of excessive force.
Adams sharp words for both came as he joined students and advocates at Borough Hall this morning to unveil a new initiative that will provide youth peer-to-peer training on how to interact with law enforcement.
The announcement represents one response to a recent series of incidents that have stretched the divide between police and local youth. Last weekend, video footage of a fight exploding between NYPD officers and teens in downtown Brooklyn’s Jay Street-Metrotech station went viral, drawing widespread disapproval from the public and elected officials.
The pilot program was inspired by Adam’s original action following the video, a Know Your Rights training led by former New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers. The training aimed to educate youth about appropriate ways to interact with law enforcement.
“The audacity of being a young person and the energy that comes with being young people is a crime. It’s a crime. We need to change that narrative,” said Adams. “And the response of Commissioner O’Neill, of totally dismissing the fact that young people are young, shows why the police department is incapable of correctly policing all the communities in this city. That is why we’re doing this training; we’re responding to the [student’s] statement that we need to give training to young people.”
The pilot will be funded by a $5,000 seed grant from Adams and will train homeless public school students to lead interactive workshops for their peers, teaching them what to do in various situations when stopped by police.
Adams also called on the NYPD to enhance and prioritize their education on de-escalation tactics during their annual in-service training.
“We have to empower kids and let them know they matter. I would like to sit down and speak with [incoming police Commissioner Dermot Shea],” Adams said. “[Shea] told me that we’re going to move forward with this program and the police will be involved. It’s so important because we have to balance police training and training about police officers.”
But Adams saved some harsh words for the alleged perpetrators filmed in a violent video last Friday, where several protesters at a demonstration against the NYPD’s subway fare evasion crackdown spit on cops, vandalized cars, and chanted obscenities at police.
“The people who were jumping the turnstile in the train station who said “F the police,” who were spitting in the face of the police officers, who had a damaging cause; I don’t know who they’re talking for, but they’re not speaking for me. That is not how I feel about the men and women who protect the city every day. And people who believe we can live in this city without proper law enforcement — they need to move somewhere else,” said Adams.
“I want my police here; I want them to protect my city. I want them to protect these young people right here. And I guarantee you the people who said “F the police,” was spitting in their face, were caught up in a cause. Let them be a victim of the crime; they’re going to be the first ones yelling, ‘Where is the cops?’
“They don’t speak for me, and they don’t speak for the overwhelming number of New Yorkers,” Adams continued. “Public safety is a prerequisite to prosperity. And those police officers are not only just men and women, they are our fathers, our sons, our sisters, our brothers. They are the people who put their lives on the line every day, and when that gunshot goes off, they’re not running away from it, they’re running towards it. And I know because I ran towards those gunshots.”
