POLS' 'FINEST' TIME
Cop ride-along in bid to kill bill
Mayor Adams took a crew of City Council members on police patrol over the weekend in his much-publicized bid to kill the cop-stops bill.
At least eight lawmakers donned bulletproof vests for a Saturday night ride-along in Harlem and The Bronx, with Adams hoping to sway at least two council members who backed the “How Many Stops Act” to vote Tuesday to uphold his veto of the measure.
“It was very eye-opening and I think that this is something we should incorporate when we’re putting together bills like this,” Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks (D-SI) said after wrapping up the night.
“It does give good insight,” she added.
See police in action
Packed into NYPD vehicles, the lawmakers tagged along for cop calls that included reports of a stolen cellphone and an assault at a Manhattan liquor store.
Adams, a former NYPD captain, is banking that the experience will help him uphold his veto of the bill that passed the council, 35-9. He needs at least two of those 35 yes-voters to switch to maintain the veto.
The proposal would require cops on the beat to file reports on even the most menial encounters with New Yorkers — a policy that Adams says would drown New York’s Finest in unnecessary paperwork.
“This is a brilliant idea of governance,” Adams said Saturday night.
“I think we do a lot in our chambers that is not really a full knowledge of what’s on the ground.
“It’s better when we spend time on the ground,” he told reporters. “I think we should make this part of our orientation.”
With constant prodding from cops on the ride-along, council members were told how police officers simply asking bystanders if they saw anything could trigger the new law and hamper police work.
Some council members pushed back on Adams’ ridealong offer, including a dozen members of the black subcommittee of the council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, which issued a terse statement last week telling the mayor they didn’t “need a litmus test” on police work.
Pulled over
Among the lawmakers signing off on that statement was Yusef Salaam (D-Manhattan), who said he backed out of the ridealong after being pulled over by police in Harlem on Friday night.
Police said Salaam was stopped for allegedly having tinted windows on the car that were too dark under the law, and released bodycam footage of the cop politely leaving the scene when the lawmaker immediately identified himself as a member of the council.
Nonetheless, Salaam griped in a statement that the cop never explained why he was stopped in the first place.
Salaam, who told the officer he was on an official call, was driving a vehicle with Georgia license plates and had his family in the car.