NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said he’s running for New York City mayor in 2021.
Adams announced his candidacy on Twitter and in a campaign video published to his YouTube page late Tuesday night.
“We’re in a dark place right now, a dark moment for New York and America,” Adams says in the ad. “Whether it’s the pandemic or violence in our streets, we don’t feel safe. And too often city government makes things worse with inefficiency that leads to inequality and holds our people back.”
In the video, he told of his personal experience with police brutality as a teenager in South Jamaica, Queens.
"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," he says. "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."
Adams served more than 20 years in the NYPD and was elected as a New York state senator in 2006. He became the first person of color to serve as Brooklyn borough president in 2013.
In the ad, Adams says he’ll tackle COVID, New York’s fiscal crisis, crime and homelessness and fight for quality schools and affordable health care and housing.
“We have big challenges, but we’re New Yorkers. We respond, we take action, and with the right leadership, we will rise up again,” he says.
Adams is expected to officially launch his campaign on Wednesday.