Eric Adams, the mayor-elect of New York City, announced earlier this month that he would reinstitute plain clothes officers in New York to help police the city. The move has drawn some harsh criticism from Black Lives Matter activist Hawk Newsome. Adams and Newsome sat down for a meeting as well this month but after the meeting Adams told reporters that there would be “riots and bloodshed” if plainclothes policing came back to the city.
“If he thinks that they’re going to go back to the old ways of policing, then we are going to take to the streets again. There will be riots, there will be fire and there will be bloodshed because we believe in defending our people,” Newsome told reporters.
Adams wasn’t moved by Newsome’s threats and said that neither he nor other Democrats will be bullied. Newsome later replied to Adams and said that he was triggered by a question about plainclothes officers when he first commented.
“It made me think about the death of Eric Garner. It made me think about the death of Breonna Taylor. It made me think of the death of George Floyd. And to think that Eric Adams is legitimately wanting to put our children in danger — it scares me,” Newsome told the New York Daily News.
Eric Garner Jr. has now come forward and denounced Newsome’s comments.
“Hawk Newsome threatening to burn down our city in response to Mayor-elect Eric Adams’s proposal of bringing back the anti-crime unit in plain clothes [adds] insult to injury to my family and the movement at large. On behalf of the entire movement, I must ask you to retract your statement and redirect that righteous anger to help all of us form a more constructive way of accomplishing our goals because, at the end of the day, we all we got. I will not let you or anyone else jeopardize our progress,” Garner Jr. said in a statement.
Garner Jr’s father, Eric Garner Sr, was killed in 2014 by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo. He was choked to death after being accosted for suspicion of selling single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. His last words “I can’t breathe” helped fuel the Black Lives Matters movement and protests around the country.
Newsome spoke with the New York Post after Garner Jr’s comments and although he didn’t respond to his statement he did wish him love, stating, “God bless him and his fight for justice for his father.”
