Mayor Adams to New Yorkers: Keep your distance while taking pictures and videos of police
NEW YORK - Mayor Eric Adams formally unveiled his new Neighborhood Safety Teams to get guns off the street Wednesday.
He had a direct message for people who use cell phones to record what cops are doing: Stay back, keep your distance, and if you have an iPhone that can't record pictures from a distance, then get a new iPhone.
As CBS2's Marcia Kramer reports, that's Adams' warning to the public who, in this age of social media, may be tempted to record members of his new anti-gun units, or any other police officers, in action.
"What is not going to happen - I'm not going to put these men and women on the front line and have someone put a phone in their face while they're taking action and try to critique their ability to do their job, and allow the noise to determine that they're not doing their job correctly," Adams said.
Members of Adams' new Neighborhood Safety Teams to get guns off the streets will be wearing body cameras to record their actions and make sure they are doing the right thing.
He doesn't want members of the public interfering with what he says is a very dangerous job.
"If an office is on the ground wrestling with someone that has a gun, they should not have to worry about someone standing over them with a camera," Adams said. "There's a proper way to police, and there's a proper way to document. If your iPhone can't catch that picture with you being at a safe distance, then you need to upgrade your iPhone. Stop being on top of my police officers while they're carrying out their jobs. That is not acceptable and it won't be tolerated."
The mayor didn't exactly say what a safe distance is, and what would happen to people who get in the way.
Communications Director Max Young tweeted out a clarification, insisting the mayor was asking New Yorkers to film at a safe distance, and was not saying New Yorkers don't have the right to film police.
Some point out that we may not have learned what happened in the Eric Garner chokehold case if a bystander hadn't recorded the incident.
