“I was shocked at how bad this place is.” That’s Mayor Adams’ 100% correct verdict on the dysfunction New York is currently dealing with, especially on crime and public safety.
Kudos to the mayor for getting it right. But after the diagnosis must come the cure.
Just skim a small sample of some of our recent stories:
- A straphanger was knifed in the back Sunday, as he argued with another subway rider on a C train in Manhattan.
- Satnam Singh of Queens was found in his car in South Ozone Park on Saturday with multiple gunshot wounds; he died in hospital.
- Four people were wounded Saturday night in Brooklyn by shooters in a scooter drive-by. One of those hit was eight years old.
- A 33-year-old man is in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest, also in Brooklyn.
- In the same nabe, a grandmother was killed and her 8-year-old grandson left near death when a car filled with people fleeing cops ran them over.
It’s the same litany that’s gone on for months, and as Adams notes, the dysfunction in dealing with these problems reached crisis levels under Mayor de Blasio. He just didn’t care to tackle them.
Now Adams has a difficult job. He has to bring back to life a city crushed by terrible COVID rules, disastrous state criminal-justice laws and at least one DA who coddles crooks. To say nothing of the massive mess he inherited from his predecessor, whose left-field policies set the stage for the problems we see today on everything from crime to schools to the economy.
Adams is making progress, driving down murders and shootings, trying to innovate policing and pushing ahead to help all New Yorkers.
But he’s a former cop: public safety is his specialty. De Blasio left him a mess. But he’s got to fix it.