A Black Lives Matter leader said any effort to increase policing in response to rising crime in New York City will be opposed. Mayor-elect...
A Black Lives Matter leader said any effort to increase policing in response to rising crime in New York City will be opposed.
Mayor-elect Eric Adams, who is black, has said he will recreate a unit that will pit plainclothes officers against violent criminals.
That is not acceptable to Black Lives Matter co-founder Hawk Newsome, according to the New York Post.
“If they think they are going back to the old ways of policing, then we’re going to take to the streets again,” Newsome said after a meeting with Adams.
“There will be riots. There will be fire, and there will be bloodshed,” he threatened.
“To ignore that history and say you’re bringing it back means that he’s tone-deaf,” Newsome said.
The unit was disbanded in 2020 amid concerns over high-profile cases and amid protests against the police.
Adams, a former captain in the NYPD, has said he wants to create a revised version of the unit to tamp down crime, which began spiking last year.
Newsome said he was irked that during their meeting Adams “didn’t offer a comment on police reform … he wouldn’t offer us anything concrete.”
“We will be at his front door, we will be at Gracie Mansion, we will be in the streets if he allows these police to abuse us,” Newsome said.
“I am not threatening anyone. I am just saying that it’s a natural response to aggressive oppression. People will react,” he said.
Adams said there was “no reason we cannot have both safe streets and racial justice in our city.”
“If black lives truly matter, then we must address violence in our communities while we address bias in policing. Yelling and not listening gets us nowhere,” he said.
During the meeting with Adams, which was streamed live on Instagram, Chivona Newsome, Hawk Newsome’s sister, said politicians “shuck, jive and use rap quotes,” but do not ever improve the lives of minority citizens.
“You need to be corrected,” Adams said. “You need to be corrected based on what you’re saying. Don’t tell me, ‘I need to do this’ … say, ‘We need to do this.’”
“I put my body on the line for my community. So I’m not here for folks to come and say ‘I’m going to hold you accountable.’ No, it’s us,” Adams stated.
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