Mayor-elect dismisses Black Lives Matter threats of riots if NYPD unit resurrected
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams met with Black Lives Matter Greater New York Wednesday, a conversation that ended in heated fashion with organizers threatening protests and violence if Adams brings back the controversial plainclothes NYPD anti-crime unit.
Adams plans on doing just that, promising he would resurrect the undercover police unit that was deeply involved with stop and frisk.
"If they think they are going to go back to the old ways of policing, then we are going to take to the streets again," Black Lives Matter's Hawke Newsome said. "There will be riots. There will be fire. And there will be bloodshed."
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On Thursday, Adams dismissed the local Black Lives Matter organizers.
"That's silly, and I think New Yorkers should not allow rhetoric like that."
He also called them a fringe group of just 13 people.
"There are very few things that intimidate me, there are very few things that scare me," he said. "New Yorkers are not going to live in fear, and we're not going to be intimidated by anyone...I am not changing who I am."
In the meeting, Adams says they never talked about that specialized anti-gun unit. But afterwards, they warned Adams: Don't even think about it.
"It's pretty much how Eric Adams wants to go about it," BLM's Chivona Newsome said. "That's how Black Lives Matter Greater New York will address the problem. If he wants to see the city in an uprising, we can give him that."
On the campaign trail, Adams vowed he would retrain and rebuild the secretive police unit, and on Thursday, he said that's exactly what he's doing.
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"There is no surprise on what I said," he said. "When I ran to become the mayor of the city of New York, I said I was going to reinstitute anti-gun unit in plain clothes. Voters voted on that."
Adams also pointed to violent crime in the city and ripped BLM leaders for saying nothing about that. He said they need to, and that he can't fix the problem alone.
"So what I said to them, it's time for you to be held accountable on what's happening in your city," he said. "Don't look to Eric. I was elected to be mayor, not the messiah...We got to do this together."
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