Sliwa: It’s guards who need help
Curtis Sliwa, the GOP candidate for City Hall, backed New York City corrections officers as the jail guards union leaders testified at a City Council hearing on Wednesday about what they say are intolerable conditions at troubled Rikers Island.
The long-shot Republican mayoral hopeful said New Yorkers should be more worried about the conditions faced by officers than by inmates at the city jail.
“Nobody seems to care about the correctional officers,” Sliwa said outside City Hall. “That’s why I’m here.”
Sliwa called for an end to triple shifts and the hiring of 2,000 additional correctional officers.
Sliwa didn’t mention by name his main opponent, Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams, who is a retired NYPD captain.
He decried Mayor de Blasio and other elected officials whom he accused of being more concerned about inmates at Rikers than officers who work there.
“They have the toughest job of all,” Sliwa said. “They need a mayor and a city council who has their back.”
Sliwa had an unusual closing pitch, noting that he’s the only Gracie Mansion hopeful who spent time on the wrong side of the bars at Rikers.
“I’m the only one who knows what it’s like,” Sliwa said. “From the inside out and the outside in.”