NEW YORK – The police force that catapulted Eric Adams to the mayoralty of New York City could be his downfall – if a rival can effectively steal his political calling card.
The hard-line mayor enters his re-election year on a trail of chaos and corruption through the upper ranks of the NYPD – most recently the abrupt resignation of Adams’ handpicked department head following sexual assault allegations. Another high-ranking agent was captured.
The mayor has appointed four police commissioners in three years, after forcing out his second top cop after federal agents raided his and his twin brother’s homes. Adams’ deputy mayor for public safety resigned and a top aide who advised him on police work was pushed out — both amid investigations into their conduct.
Against this backdrop, New York voters continue to view crime as their top concern.
The dirty mess atop the nation’s largest police force — which the police commissioner-turned-mayor is trying to clean up with the recent appointment of a new commissioner, Jessica Tisch — could loosen his tenuous grip on the mayoralty. But Adams’ challengers for reelection are strangely silent about the resignation of department head Jeffrey Maddrey last week.
“It’s clear that his core campaign message has not been very well operationalized,” Basil Smikle Jr., former head of the New York State Democratic Party, said in an interview. “But trying to consistently convince voters that this has had a negative impact on their lives is a much tougher challenge for his opponents – it’s really up to them to explain why this disqualifies them from [Adams].”
As if to illustrate his point, most of Adams’ Democratic rivals have not used the latest scandal to rock the department. The New York Post published a graphic account last Friday from one of Maddrey’s subordinates, accusing him of repeatedly sexually assaulting her at NYPD headquarters in exchange for approving overtime so excessive that a separate investigation followed. Maddrey has denied the allegations.
It seems an obvious line of attack on the law-and-order mayor, and the relative silence from leading rivals indicates that opponents of Adams’ political left are grappling with how to campaign on his signature issue.
“We feel like we have to acknowledge our outrage. And honestly, the timing of this made this a less attractive target. Not particularly noble, but that’s the calculation,” said a staffer from a rival campaign, who was granted anonymity to freely discuss internal strategy.
Another opposing staffer also cited the pre-holiday timing of Maddrey’s ouster as a deterrent to build-up. The response was in stark contrast to the flurry of statements taking Adams to task when prosecutors charged him with bribery in September — charges he is contesting in court.
One candidate, attorney Jim Walden, on Thursday called on the Justice Department to investigate allegations of sexual abuse in the upper ranks of the NYPD.
“The current police commissioner is doing a great job for New Yorkers, but she is the fourth commissioner in two years in an administration that has zero credibility,” Walden, who is running as an independent candidate, said in a statement, adding the issue. was created by the men the mayor promoted and protected.”
And MP Zohran Mamdani, a far-left Democrat, posted that Maddrey was “not only the highest-ranking officer in uniform, but also the mayor’s close friend” and noted a day earlier that the mayor’s top aide had been indicted on bribery charges. “In 2025, we will end this ugly chapter in New York history,” he added.
The mayor’s oversight of the NYPD stands in stark contrast to his rhetoric during the 2021 campaign, when he pledged to effectively lead the agency charged with reducing crime — a winning message for voters concerned about the rise of lawlessness in the pandemic era.
While Adams quickly called the allegations against Maddrey “extremely concerning” and promised an investigation, he defended Maddrey last year in the face of allegations of misconduct — unlike his first police commissioner — and tapped him for the top uniformed job in the first place place, despite a difficult period in the department.
All told, the mayor’s decision to install old friends in positions of power has hampered the key department’s bid for reelection just as the city was struggling to return to pre-pandemic crime levels — something the city has yet to achieve .
“It sounds so boring, but it’s all about governance,” Elizabeth Glazer, former head of the mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice under Bill de Blasio, said in an interview. “Do you have the right people in the right places, whose efforts are entirely focused on making the city safer and not lining their pockets? Not to get sexual favors. Not to make sure they have a contract. And not about retaliation.”
Glazer then founded a research and policy journal called Vital City. In August, the newspaper published an analysis that aims to explain why New Yorkers are still concerned about crime, despite the city being the safest major metropolis in the country, and despite the fact that most major index crimes occurred under Adams traps.
For starters, crime is still higher than before the pandemic, the report said. Crime attacks have been happening for several years in a row. Lower-level crimes, such as harassment, have been on a steady rise since 2020 – and at the time of the report were expected to reach a ten-year high.
Instead of leading a nationwide decline in crime rates this time, the report said, the NYPD is following other cities across the state and the country.
The mayor’s office pushed back on the idea that leadership changes had any effect on crime rates.
“When Mayor Adams took office in January 2022, the city faced significant challenges: crime – especially shootings – was on the rise, homeless encampments were popping up across the five boroughs, and tourism was nearing a record low,” said Adams’ spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus. in a statement. “Today, crime continues to decline, our Homeless Encampment Task Force has ensured that our streets are no longer like those of other major American cities, employment in New York City has reached an all-time high this year, and tourism has made a remarkable comeback has made,” says Mamelak. said Altus.
And someone familiar with Adams’ thinking, who was granted anonymity to discuss the policies and responses to 2025 opponents, argued that New York City is grappling with obstacles beyond the mayor’s control, including the 2019 reform bills, a dysfunctional legal system and Albany’s refusal to provide subsidies. a clearer authority to forcibly remove New Yorkers struggling with various mental health issues.
“You could ask anyone in law enforcement and they will tell you that these things are a huge problem and of course the threshold for crime is higher now,” the person said.
Adams’ challengers have focused on allegations of his corruption and mismanagement – a tacit admission of the challenge in the anti-crime campaign against a retired police commander. Nearly three in 10 New York City voters named crime their top concern in an October New York Times/Siena poll. Hispanics and Bronx residents were particularly concerned about the lawlessness.
“I believe that effective and fair policing go together,” city Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running to Adams’ left, said in an interview with POLITICO earlier this year. “And that is largely a management challenge.”
How relevant the current issues facing Adams will be in six months may depend on the courts and law enforcement officials. Adams himself will be indicted on federal bribery charges in April. And city, state and federal prosecutors are investigating several other figures who previously controlled the NYPD, which could put the agency’s dysfunction back in the news even if the mayor’s new commissioner rights the ship.
The person with knowledge of the mayor’s thinking said the campaign will have an easy answer for anyone in the left-of-center field who raises issues with Adams’ stewardship of the NYPD.
“They all have a history of doing things that are so unpopular now that the response to every argument is that [Adams] isn’t tough enough on crime will be: maybe we should just dismantle the police, like you said, [Lander]. Or perhaps we should have passed even milder criminal justice reforms that would allow more people accused of crimes to get out of prison. [State Sen. Zellnor Myrie]the person said.
