Eric Adams, The So-so Former Republican, A Former Cop, And The Brooklyn Borough President Will Become Mayor

As far as ‘pro­gres­sives’ go, the ques­tion remains in the sup­posed deep-blue New York City, how real­ly pro­gres­sive is New York City?
Emerging from the slew of can­di­dates run­ning on the Democratic tick­et to replace the term-lim­it­ed Mayor Bill de Blasio were three top-tiered can­di­dates, (1) for­mer san­i­ta­tion com­mis­sion­er Kathryn Garcia, (2) Eric Adams, for­mer NYPD cap­tain, for­mer Republican & (3) Maya Wiley Attorney, Activist and the true progressive.
In the end, it will be Eric Adams, the so-so for­mer Republican, a for­mer cop, and the Brooklyn Borough pres­i­dent, who will face off against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican can­di­date in November, to decide who will be Mayor of the city of 8 plus mil­lion peo­ple. Sliwa is best known for his red T‑shirt, beret-wear­ing guardian angels, a fix­ture in the city for decades.

In a city that is sup­posed to be heav­i­ly Democratic and pro­gres­sive, it is remark­able that an ex-cop, turn­coat Republican will most like­ly be the next may­or, black or not. No black per­son should feel that they will skate into elect­ed office by virtue of their skin color.
According to the Board of Elections, Eric Adams reg­is­tered as a Republican in 1997 before switch­ing back to the Democratic Party in 2001. We all know it is eas­i­er to gain polit­i­cal office if you have a “D” beside your name in New York City. Adams served as pres­i­dent of the Grand Council of Guardians, an African American patrolmen’s asso­ci­a­tion. In 1995, he co-found­ed 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, an advo­ca­cy group for black police offi­cers seek­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, and often spoke out against police bru­tal­i­ty and racial profiling.
Adams was opposed to police stop and frisk but is now sup­port­ing the mea­sure that has caused untold agony and pain to count­less black and brown youth in the city. Adams came under intense racist ridicule from his white for­mer col­leagues dur­ing and after his career as a cop. He want­ed their sup­port; hence, he changed his posi­tion to cur­ry favor.

The long and short of the Eric Adams sto­ry is that lib­er­als and pro­gres­sives failed once again to turn out and vote for the can­di­date that best rep­re­sents their interest.
White lib­er­als with skin in the game did, so Maya Wiley, the only true pro­gres­sive in the race, came in third in the city that is sup­posed to be the bluest of all in the nation.
It’s not that the city isn’t blue; Blacks and Latinos, the peo­ple with the most at stake, are too lazy to get up off the back­sides and vote for the can­di­dates that will best advance the poli­cies in their interest.

Eric Adams speaks from both cor­ners of his mouth, and I’m sure that most politi­cians who want to be elect­ed do that from time to time. However, New York City has been plagued by far too many inci­dences of mis­con­duct by mem­bers of the NYPD, which is a huge gang that is out of con­trol by all intents and purposes.
They try to run over law­ful demon­stra­tors with cruis­ers, engage in racist behav­ior, and com­mit all kinds of crimes against black and brown cit­i­zens of the city with almost absolute impunity.
They have zero fear they will be held account­able for what­ev­er crimes they com­mit. Take, for exam­ple; One New York City police offi­cer was accused of pep­per-spray­ing a woman, then deny­ing her med­ical treat­ment while she was hand­cuffed in a Bronx hold­ing cell. Another offi­cer slammed a 51-year-old man who had been argu­ing with some restau­rant work­ers onto the floor, knock­ing him uncon­scious, the man said. A third offi­cer was accused of tack­ling a gay man dur­ing a pride parade and using a homo­pho­bic slur. The city’s inde­pen­dent over­sight agency that inves­ti­gates police mis­con­duct found enough evi­dence in all three cas­es to con­clude that the offi­cers should face the most severe dis­ci­pline avail­able, includ­ing sus­pen­sion or dis­missal from the force. But in the end, senior police offi­cials down­grad­ed or out­right reject­ed those charges, and the offi­cers were giv­en less­er pun­ish­ments or none at all — the kind of rou­tine out­come that has left the Police Department fac­ing a cri­sis of trust in its abil­i­ty to dis­ci­pline its own. (The New York Times reported).
See that com­pre­hen­sive sto­ry here; https://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2​0​2​0​/​1​1​/​1​5​/​n​y​r​e​g​i​o​n​/​c​c​r​b​-​n​y​c​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​m​i​s​c​o​n​d​u​c​t​.​h​tml

One cop, Sgt. David Grieco, nick­named bul­let­head by his cohorts, who is now assigned to the 67^th Precinct, has a raft of civil­ian com­plaints against him for abus­ing the cit­i­zens he is sup­posed to serve. In the east New York com­mu­ni­ty he is sta­tioned in, res­i­dents com­plain that he sum­mar­i­ly bru­tal­izes them and they have no avenue for redress.
That tough guy is one of the most-sued cops on the force and has cost the cit­i­zens of New York a whop­ping $600’000 to set­tle com­plaints against him.

According to the New York Daily News, he has been the sub­ject of at least 69 CCRB com­plaints, 12 of which have been sub­stan­ti­at­ed. Imagine that it’s next to impos­si­ble to file a com­plaint against a mem­ber of the NYPD, much less to have one deemed cred­i­ble or substantiated.
This guy has 12 sub­stan­ti­at­ed; he is still a cop in the NYPD. he was recent­ly docked a mere 10 days pay by Dermott Shea, the Commissioner after the CCRB rec­om­mend­ed a stiffer penal­ty against him for vio­lat­ing the rights of Uber dri­ver Nash Martin fol­low­ing a January 2018 car stop in Brownsville.
Even though he was iden­ti­fied in a cell phone video record­ing of the ille­gal stop and search of mis­ter Martin’s car Sgt David Grieco lied that he did not believe that the per­son in the video was he.
These are the kinds of char­ac­ters who are super­vi­sors in that mam­moth gang that Eric Adams was a part of.
These are the kinds of char­ac­ters that Eric Adams will unleash on black and brown cit­i­zens of New York City because these same peo­ple were too dumb or too lazy to get up off their ass­es and go vote for Maya Wiley.

.

.

.

.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.