Marist Poll shows Mayor Eric Adams is doing well, but pollster says honeymoon could end quickly if gun crime is not stopped
NEW YORK -- With gun crimes continuing to terrify the city -- the cold-blooded shooting of homeless people just the latest atrocity -- the first of the NYPD's new neighborhood safety teams hit the streets Monday.
As CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported, it's important test of Mayor Eric Adams' ability to bring the city back from the depths of the pandemic.
These are very challenging times for a former cop who ran and won on a promise of making the city safe again, but if the new neighborhood safety teams don't turn the tide, Adams could see an abrupt end to the honeymoon he has been enjoying.
A new poll out Monday has definite alarm bells.
"He's doing OK right now, but, as you indicate, the warning signs are there with the reality of crime and people are feeling right now not as strong on that issue as they are on others for him," said Dr. Lee Miringoff of the Marist College Poll.
Miringoff says that after 10 weeks in office, Adams is still in the honeymoon phase of his mayoralty.
Right now:
- 61 percent of New Yorkers approve of the job he's doing
- 24 percent disapprove
- 15 percent are unsure
But the results are not a total reason to start popping champagne corks.
- 49 percent of city residents think the city is moving in the right direction
- 42 percent say its moving in the wrong direction
And when that question was last asked in 2017, under the extremely unpopular Bill de Blasio, 46 percent said right direction and 43 percent said the wrong direction.
What could move the needle in either direction for Adams is whether he gets a handle on crime and makes the streets safer.
Since he took office, it seems like there has been one high-profile crime after another. Surveillance video of a man police say is going around and shooting homeless people is just the latest incident. Two cops have been killed, while others have been shot and wounded. A 19-year-old cashier at a Burger King was shot and killed, and on and on and on.
The city pinning its hopes on the the first wave of neighborhood safety teams that started working Monday in areas of the city with high gun crime. They have been specially trained to prevent the aggressive and, some claim, abusive, tactics of the old anti-crime units that were abolished by de Blasio in the wake of the defund-the-police movement.
"We actually had to take a look at the mistakes of the past and what we needed to change. The officers are being trained in the constitution, in community interaction, car stops, use of force," NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.
Marist pollsters asked New Yorkers their opinions of how the new mayor is handling a number of issues. Crime got the lowest scores.
- 64 percent approve of his handling of the pandemic
- 61 percent give a thumb's up on handling relations between cops and the community
- 55 percent is his grade on schools
- 53 percent on handling crime
"These numbers could change because it's not solid," Miringoff said. "Crime is a big deal in New York City and what has been going on is certainly the kind of thing that he's going to have to address and assuage people's worries."
When fully operational, the new anti-crime teams will be in 30 neighborhoods and several public housing projects that account for 80 percent of the gun violence. As of the first week in March, major crimes were up 47 percent since Adams took office.
