NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacked Mayor Eric Adams' policing approach days after a 12-year-old boy was gunned down while eating in a car with relatives in Brooklyn late last week.
The progressive Democrat, who represents part of the Bronx and Queens, used the thumbs-down emoji on Adams' policing vision after an Instagram user asked what her opinion was on the mayor's "changes in NYPD policy & funding" amid an online Q&A session on Saturday.
"Cutting virtually every city agency’s budget while raising NYPD’s, bringing back the plainclothes unit notorious for misconduct and responsible for an enormous % of all NYC police killings, torture in the form of solitary [confinement] at Rikers and destroying homeless people’s sole belongings/ shelter in the middle of winter while defunding the very shelter system they’re supposed to turn to?" she wrote.
"It's a no for me," the 32-year-old added.
Ocasio-Cortez seemed to knock Adams, a former NYPD captain, as one of the "people" who think "we can police our way out of problems that our housing, education and healthcare policies created."
"But as long as people think we can police our way out of problems that our housing, education, and healthcare policies created we are going to continue to have crime and violence," she added. "And by violence I don't just mean people committing it but also systems and power committing it against people. "
The shooting in East Flatbush on Thursday night, which killed Kade Lewin and critically injured Jenna Ellis, 20, comes amid a 17% uptick in shootings this year and a 71% surge over 2020.
In addition to his controversial new anti-gun unit, the Neighborhood Safety Teams, Adams has used the NYPD to remove homeless people from the city's subway system and their encampments around the city.
A City Hall spokesperson told The New York Post that through March 30, the Neighborhood Safety Teams had made 101 arrests, 22 of which were for guns, with 69% of those defendants having prior arrests.
While a majority of New York City voters in a Marist poll last month approved of Adams' centrist approach on crime, only 40% said Adams was doing an "excellent" or "good" job — lower than three of his four predecessors at the start of their tenures.
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