Violence uncurbed — Stabbings, multiple shootings and a brutal robbery — marred Memorial Day 2021 Weekend. “This is unacceptable,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who is calling on the city “once again to adopt (his) plan to fight or deter crime before summer 2021 arrives. “We cannot live in a city where New Yorkers are afraid to take the subway and our children are afraid to go to skateparks and our City Parks are forced to close out of fear of violence.”
Adams’ detailed plan for curbing gun violence, promoting subway safety and support for people with serious mental illness includes:
Safer subways
Strengthen the use of Kendra’s Law — a State law that grants judges authority to issue orders for court-ordered assisted outpatient treatment to individuals with serious mental health issues;
Partner teams of trained mental health professionals with existing police patrols of the subway system;
Invest in bystander training to combat hate-driven behavior;
Increase the number of inpatient psychiatric beds, working to repeal the Medicaid exclusion that effectively prohibits billing from specialized psychiatric hospitals as well as halting the State’s decertification of existing beds;
Create more medical respite beds, provided by crisis stabilization centers that offer short-term care for unhoused New Yorkers who are not sick enough to stay in the hospital, but are too sick to return to a shelter or the streets;
Expand psychosocial rehab services that combines a physical community center environment with access to social services that holistically address the housing, employment, education, social, and health needs of members.
Reducing gun violence
Reinstitute the plainclothes anti-crime unit as an anti-gun unit with officers better trained and equipped to handle the vital role of finding illegal guns and shooters.
Significantly increase funding to the City’s Office to Prevent Gun Violence.
Get officers off of desk duty and civilian assignments and back on to the streets, deployed in places like Times Square that must be protected.
Shift resources into the Gun Violence Suppression Division, a highly specialized NYPD unit within the Detectives Bureau tasked with seizing illegal guns and building cases against illegal carriers and traffickers.
Prevent illegal guns from flowing through our bus and train stations with spot checks like the ones we use in subway stations.
Work with the Port Authority to strengthen security at city entry points, implementing spot checks and coordinating anti-trafficking initiatives.
Create a Special Citywide Prosecutor for Illegal Guns, with the dedicated resources and focus needed to manage and litigate illegal gun cases, and to help our pursuit of seeing these cases adjudicated more swiftly in our court system.
Fully fund the City’s Crisis Management System and allow for more centralized coordination between law enforcement, community groups and our hospitals.
Improve communication and coordination between CMS and NYPD to prevent retaliatory violence once a shooting has occurred.