NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Democratic mayoral candidate Eric Adams traveled to Washington on Monday to meet with President Joe Biden to discuss curbing gun violence after another violent weekend in New York City.
Adams along with local leaders and law enforcement officials from other violence-plagued cities gathered at the White House to meet with Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland to talk about reducing crime.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, San Jose, California, Mayor Sam Liccardo, Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis, Chief David Brown of Chicago and Lt. Anthony Lima of Newark, New Jersey also attended.
The Associated Press reports Biden was expected to talk through the work federal law enforcement is doing to stop the flow of illegal guns, including new strike forces in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington to help take down illegal gun traffickers and a new "zero tolerance" policy for dealers who sell guns illegally.
Following the meeting, Adams said he was able to share his vision for cutting the number of shootings.
"My request of the president was number one to make sure that we use the money that is being allocated to deal with underlying causes, because we must have a plan that's prevention and intervention," Adams said. "We need to put in place real plans in New York City to go after the gun violence. We had a 13-year-old child that was assassinated in the Bronx, a 10-year-old child that was shot in Rockaway, These parents and families are looking for real relief right now and I think there's some things we can do with the dollars that the president has allocated to make sure that we get to those long term plans."
Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Adams said he believes that there will be a coordinated effort between the president, governor and mayor to go after the flow of guns in New York City.
The Brooklyn Borough President and retired NYPD captain has ideas for how to stem the flow of illegal handguns from other states and he also wants to redeploy plainclothes units that were sidelined by the NYPD last year following anti-police protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd.
"We want to see the remake of an anti-gun unit that's going to do precision policing focusing on gangs and guns, we're going to have a coordinated effort to ensure our gun suppression unit receive the resources they deserve," Adams said.
Over the weekend in New York City, shootings claimed four more lives and seven people were wounded.
In the Bronx, police said a 13-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy were killed in separate gang-related shootings.
Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be working shoulder to shoulder with the NYPD to get guns off the streets and reduce crime.
Meanwhile, last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a first-in-the-nation executive order declaring a "disaster emergency" on gun violence in New York State.
The new executive order will allow the state to "move quickly" and free up funding to create new programs to target gun violence.
