Mayor hopefuls tout strategies vs. gun violence

Mayoral candidates remained focused on gun violence Tuesday, days after a shooting in Times Square shocked the city.

Ex-top de Blasio aide Maya Wiley and former Obama big Shaun Donovan stuck to plans to cut funds from the NYPD, saying they would crack down on guns in the meantime. Former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, who’s shied away from calls to defund the police, promised to expand the city’s gun buyback program, among other steps.

Wiley struck a personal tone during a speech in City Hall Park in Manhattan.

“What I know as a Black woman is to fear crime and what it feels like to fear the police,” she said before decrying Saturday’s shooting in Times Square, in which two women and a 4-year-old were blasted when an argument among several men escalated into gunfire.

“That is outrageous and that will not stand when I am mayor,” Wiley said of the violence, going on to note similar incidents happen “every day and every way in Black and Brown communities.”

Recent days have seen Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and businessman Andrew Yang, front-runners in the race, decry calls to defund the NYPD that arose during last year’s nationwide anti-police brutality protests.

But Wiley doubled down on her proposal to cut $1 billion from the Police Department, saying picking between bolstering NYPD ranks and ensuring public safety was a “false choice.” She repeated promises to direct the funds toward projects like “community care centers” with health and other services.

On the rise in violence, she promised to focus on “the root causes of crime” through steps like “trauma-informed care” for youngsters — sending mental health professionals, instead of cops, to schools.

She reserved her strongest rhetoric for the police themselves, saying she’d appoint a civilian to the job of top cop, boost oversight and “rewrite the rules of policing.”

“We’re going to transform this Police Department so that it is focused on the job of protecting and serving every last one of us, and we’re going to make sure that we restructure it appropriately to do that,” she said.

Speaking outside a police precinct in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Donovan said he’d trim $500 million total from both the NYPD and Correction Department within two years of taking office. The funds would go toward violence prevention programs and other efforts to keep New Yorkers out of the criminal justice system, he said. The cuts would go up to $3 billion total by the end of 2025.

Donovan, who was head of the Office of Management and Budget under former President Barack Obama and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s housing commissioner, said he’d focus the NYPD on guns and violent crime.

He promised to use data tools to track the flow of guns, get the authorities to “fast track” gun cases and work with the Biden administration and other states to “close the out-of-state gun pipeline.”

“If we reduce what we’re asking the police to do and focus them on guns and violent crime, we can create both safety and respect at the same time,” he said.

Garcia also took to an NYPD precinct stationhouse, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to outline her gun plans.

She said she’d boost the rebate rate for the city’s cash-for-guns program from $200 to $2,000 and increase the number of police precincts that participate in the program. “We want New Yorkers to have the money to buy necessities and pay rent — not guns,” Garcia said.

Her plan to clamp down on gun violence also includes an increase in the scope of the NYPD Gun Violence Suppression Division, a focus on outdoor drug deals and an effort to better align cops, prosecutors and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A moderate who recently scored a coveted endorsement from The New York Times editorial board, Garcia has no plans to drastically alter the police budget.

But she painted herself as a tough manager who will reform the police while cracking down on crime. “I have no problem firing people who break the rules, and I will do the same when I am mayor,” Garcia said. “But we must have an eye on the whole picture and our future. We have to solve the problem of gun violence in front of us.”