Adams: Solo patrol flip-flop is proof that I’m not ‘rigid’

Mayor Adams is touting his decision to walk back a plan for solo police patrols in the transit system as a testament to his administration’s flexibility and his ability to communicate with the city’s police unions.

“We’re not going to be so rigid,” Adams said Wednesday after an assault on a cop in a Brooklyn subway station caused the mayor to retreat from the solo patrol plan the same day it was announced.

Adams and the NYPD devised the patrol plan to cover more ground in the transit system, and announced Tuesday the patrols had started a day earlier. By 6:45 p.m., though, an NYPD detective had been attacked by a suspect who repeatedly grabbed for his gun in the Pennsylvania Ave. subway station.

That led to a phone call between the mayor, Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell. Adams also spoke with Detectives’ Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo.

On Tuesday night, Adams agreed to modify the plan by requiring at least two officers on patrol to stay in eyesight of each other. “We came to a real meeting of the minds,” Adams said. “Let’s have the separated solo patrols stay in eyesight of each other.”

The Daily News was first to report the decision Tuesday night.

Adams added that the decision showed his ability to engage in dialogue with police union leaders — an apparent shot at former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who had a notoriously bad relationship with police unions.

“There’s something that many people are missing — I can speak with my unions,” Adams said.

Suspect Alex Eremin — fidgety and swaying at his Brooklyn Criminal Court arraignment Wednesday night — was ordered held on $50,000 cash bail after Judge Laurie Peterson rejected his defense lawyer’s bid for supervised release.

A police spokesman said Eremin was smoking a cigarette on the southbound platform when an officer told him to stop; Eremin then threw himself partway down the platform stairs.

When the cop approached to render aid, Eremin pulled the detective down the rest of the stairs, and tried to take his gun during a pitched struggle, cops said. Eremin, who is homeless, faces charges in two earlier confrontations with police. On Feb. 27, he was accused of spitting in an officer’s eye on Eighth Ave. near W. 14th St.; on May 11, he allegedly punched his mother at the Union Square subway station, then punched and bit an officer who intervened.