Adams, a retired New York Police Division captain who embraced a public security message, would be the second Black mayor within the metropolis’s historical past, after the late David Dinkins.
A Brooklyn native who at present serves as its borough president, Adams received a chaotic Democratic main this summer season on a promise to each beef up and reform the NYPD amid worries over an increase in violent crime. His message — that “public security is the prerequisite to prosperity” — resonated with working class Democratic voters outdoors the historically liberal enclaves of Manhattan and elements of Brooklyn, which fueled his nomination. Adams’ common election marketing campaign was far more subdued. He largely ignored Sliwa, a founding father of the Guardian Angels and media persona.
After Sliwa attacked him throughout considered one of their two debates, Adams shrugged and refused to interact.
“I am chatting with New Yorkers,” he stated, “not buffoonery.”
A former state lawmaker, Adams rose to the highest of the Democratic mayoral area with a transparent pitch to voters anxious over a pandemic-year surge in violent crime and chronic considerations over NYPD abuses, arguing that he’s uniquely positioned to handle each considerations.
That effort required he strike a cautious stability in pledging to cope with police misconduct, typically noting his previous efforts to name out racism inside the NYPD, in addition to his testimony within the courtroom case that ended the illegal use of “cease and frisk” insurance policies. (Adams says the tactic needs to be used, however beneath lawful tips.) He has additionally argued that the present debate over policing has offered a false selection, rejecting each the law-and-order rhetoric favored by many on the precise, whereas denouncing left-wing activists’ calls to “defund” or extra basically reform the police.
