Metro

Mayor Eric Adams to unveil promised anti-crime plan Monday afternoon

Mayor Eric Adams has promised to announce a plan Monday aimed at curbing gun violence, in the wake of the shooting that left a rookie NYPD cop dead and another officer in grave condition.

Adams will make remarks at 2 p.m. without reporters in the room, according to his public schedule. He has added a question-and-answer session with reporters following that at 2:30 p.m. in the City Hall Rotunda. 

The mayor’s speech will come after he vowed Sunday to “roll out a real plan” with the aim of reducing gun violence in the five boroughs.

“This is a sea of crime that’s being fed by many rivers, and we need to dam each one of those rivers, and we have been unsuccessful [in doing] so throughout the years,” Adams, a retired NYPD captain, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I’m going to roll out a real plan this week when I speak to the New York public, and we’re going to go after the underlying reasons you’re seeing crime in our city.”

The scene where two NYPD cops were shot on January 21, 2022. Christopher Sadowski

Adams revealed Sunday that the new initiative will include the formation of a plainclothes anti-gun unit to replace the controversial anti-crime unit that then-Police Commissioner Dermot Shea disbanded in 2020.

“We’re going to roll out a smart way of policing, put in place again a modified version of a plainclothes anti-gun unit that’s going to go after those known shooters and people who are actually creating the devastation in our city,” he said Sunday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

The new units, to be labeled “Neighborhood Safety Teams,” will replace the uniformed Public Safety Teams in areas where shootings have been most common, according to a memo that Chief of Department Ken Corey sent out earlier this month.

NYPD Officer Jason Rivera was killed in a police shooting, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. AP
NYPD Officer Wilbert Mora was wounded in the police shooting. NYPD via AP

Additionally, Adams said the plan will include beefed-up police presence in the subway system — a move the mayor and Gov. Kathy Hochul rolled out Jan. 6.

Adams first made mention of his broad plan Saturday at a gun violence roundtable in the Bronx.

Along with promising to enact local efforts, Adams in recent days has assigned partial responsibility to the federal government for the Big Apple gun violence.

The plan comes after a shooting that left an NYPD cop dead and another in grave condition. Kevin C. Downs for The New York Post

“The police department is doing their job taking thousands of guns off the streets, yet each time you take a gun off, there’s a constant flow of new guns coming here,” he said Sunday on ABC. “And if we don’t coordinate to go after those gun dealers that are supplying large cities in America such as New York, we are losing the battle, and the federal government must step in and play a role in doing so.”

Since Adams was sworn in as mayor on Jan. 1, five NYPD officers have been shot in the line of duty.

Other horrifying crimes during his first weeks in office include a baby girl shot in the face and a mentally ill man killing a woman by shoving her in front of an oncoming subway train.

The body of police Officer Jason Rivera was brought to Riverdale Funeral Home. Kevin C. Downs for The New York Post

The latest in the unwelcome series came on Friday evening, when rookie Officer Jason Rivera, 22, was gunned down during a domestic call Friday in Harlem. His police partner, Wilbert Mora, 27, was still fighting for his life at NYU Langone hospital Sunday.

Law enforcement sources previously told The Post that suspect Lashawn McNeil, 47, used an illegal Glock handgun with an illegal “high-capacity magazine” to shoot the pair of cops and stashed a loaded AR-type weapon under his bed.

Meanwhile, Hochul announced Sunday that her new task force targeting illegal guns will convene for the first time Wednesday.