City Council calls on Mayor Eric Adams to invest in several initiatives in effort to thwart rising crime
NEW YORK -- With crime continuing to spike, the City Council has called on Mayor Eric Adams to include a raft of education, mental health and community-based social service programs in his new budget, saying they are the key to public safety.
As CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Monday, the proposals come the day before the mayor was set to unveil his new budget.
They gathered on the steps of City Hall to flex their muscles, members of the City Council who said more cops are not the only answer to solving the city's troubling surge in violence.
"So much of the focus of the conversation in our city has been about public safety and the challenges we face with both the perceived and actual lack of safety for New Yorkers, yet the conversation is too often incomplete," City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said.
The council, which is made up of a number of members who favor cuts to the NYPD budget, called on the mayor to prioritize youth, health and opportunity programs, like adding an additional 1,200 summer youth employment slots, improving the 911 mental health response, and establishing 24-hour overdose prevention centers in every borough.
"Our communities are experiencing crises on many many fronts," Adrienne Adams said.
This as the latest NYPD crime statistics show the seven major crime categories rose again last week by nearly 32 percent -- 223 crimes compared to 163 in 2021. That's up nearly 43 percent for the year.
Subway crimes were up almost 45 percent last week and 65 percent for the year, driven by increases in assaults.
"We have seen an increase in the area of 33 percent this year in felony assaults, compared to 2021. It accounts for about 29 percent of our total major crime picture," said Jason Wilcox, the NYPD's chief of transit.
This as Mayor Adams, again, talked about rolling out a pilot program of metal detectors in the subway in the wake of the Sunset Park subway shooting.
"We found a number of interesting devices that can detect guns. We want to do pilot project. We're still working out the details because we want to make sure we're protecting constitutional right. I'm excited about it," Mayor Adams said.
This comes as the MTA inspector general said she has initiated an investigation into why cameras in a number of subway stations weren't transmitting pictures during the Sunset Park shooting.
The acting transit president defended the camera system, pointing out it picked up images of the suspect getting on and off the train and riding a bus.