Mayor Eric Adams rejected a state legislator’s challenge Wednesday to debate her over his plan to toughen New York’s bail law — saying she should instead take up the issue with the mom whose baby was wounded by a stray bullet and two recently slain NYPD cops.
“I don’t think you should debate me,” Adams told Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn).
“You should debate the 11-month-old baby’s mother. You should debate the two police officers that we lost.”
Adams was then interrupted by Walker, who angrily accused Hizzoner of “making this a political issue.”
“You don’t have to tell me to debate a person who lost an 11-month-old child, because I lost a brother at the age of 19 years old to gun violence,” she said.
The reference to the baby involves a girl named Catherine who needed brain surgery after she was shot in the face on Jan. 21 while sitting with her mom in a parked car in The Bronx.
Walker also accused Adams of “adopting the rhetoric” of people who say that “racially insinuated criminal justice reform in our country is harming our city.”
Adams, a former NYPD captain, told Walker, “I’m not using rhetoric, sister. I don’t use rhetoric.”
“We philosophically disagree on the impact of this small number of people who are using the bail system to perpetuate violence in communities like yours and mine,” said Adams, who was previously Brooklyn’s borough president.
The heated exchange took place during a virtual, joint legislative committee meeting on what’s known as “Tin Cup Day” because local officials use the occasion to promote their budget priorities.
Adams urged the lawmakers to help fight gun violence by making “targeted amendments” to the state’s 2019 bail reform law and the Raise the Age legislation that increased the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18.
Adams wants judges to be allowed to consider the “dangerousness” of defendants before deciding whether to release them from custody.
Walker said Adams’ plan was “not a tweak, but it is a wholesale change to our bail system.”
“I do challenge you to a debate with respect to bail reform and the effects it has been having with respect to an alleged raise in crime in the city of New York, where we are seeing crime in the rise all across the country, even in states where bail reform is not a thing,” Walker said.
Although Adams didn’t take the bait, he later told Walker that he hoped to “further this conversation” with her during a planned visit to Albany next week.
The mayor’s bail plan was welcomed by Assemblyman Edward Ra (R-Garden City), who said, “I do want to thank you for your leadership, already pushing for more judicial discretion.”
State Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island, Brooklyn) also told Adams that she and Assemblyman Mike Cusick (D-Staten Island) would introduce legislation to require that 16- and 17-year-olds accused of violent felonies while possessing firearms be prosecuted as adults.
Additional reporting by Emily Crane
