Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams throws hat in ring for NYC mayoral run
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams formally launched his bid for mayor of New York City.
Adams posted a campaign video vowing he, as a former NYPD captain, can keep the city safe while reforming the police.
The 60-year-old, who has served as borough president since 2013, immediately becomes a front-runner in a crowded field for the June 2021 Democratic primary.
He spent 22 years in the NYPD, helping establish 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, to improve relations between the black community and police.
Adams grew up in Jamaica, Queens, where he was a teenage victim of police brutality. In the campaign video, he stands in front of the 103rd Precinct, where he said he was beaten in the basement by a police officer when he was 15 years old.
"Some people talk about police brutality, I want to tell you how it is to live through it," Adams said in the video. "That was a dark place. My life could have gone a different way, full of bitterness. But, I had people who loved me and a determination to change things. So, I became a police officer. To bridge the gap between us, to make us all safer, and to take on systemic racism from within. It's why I took on police brutality, while I was a police officer myself."
Adams had already all but declared his candidacy, raising nearly $2.6 million so far, but made it official with the video overnight and will make a formal virtual announcement later Wednesday.
His competitors include former de Blasio chief council Maya Wiley, former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former Bloomberg and Obama administration member Shaun Donovan, former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales, former Veterans' Services Commissioner Loree Sutton, and former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire.
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