Public Safety and Pandemic Surge: Key Challenges for Mayor Eric Adams

By George Onuorah

Mayor Eric Adams who assumed office New Year Eve, January 1, 2022 was anointed mayor following a very contentious election battle running as a centrist and promising to keep New Yorkers safer.

This was against the backdrop of surging omicron variant that put a damper on a planned historic inauguration to herald the dispensation of the second African-American mayor elected in this 21^st Century to hold. Despite all of that, history will chronicle Mr. Eric Adams as the 110^th mayor of the greatest City that is home to the United Nations.

Unfortunately, unlike other major Cities, New York City is facing a big challenge in crime and criminality as if to test the ability of a mayor who was a former police officer and sure understands how to combat crime. He won his race on the promise that “ Public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity.” Other equally pressing issues – covid pandemic, homelessness, housing, rebooting the economy decimated by the pandemic are challenges on his radar.

This newly minted mayor who was a former NYPD Captain clearly understood what it will take to surmount threat of public safety in our City, and returning to normalcy after more than two years of hardship, many deaths with covid having eviscerated and paralyzed the economy. Clearly, this pandemic upended life with families’ and essential workers paying a hefty price as many lost loved ones who died in thousands.

Thankfully, mayor Adams has the support of leaders, most prominent being President Biden who is due in New York City this week to show Democratic solidarity at a very crucial time with crime is becoming an impediment to advancing party agenda across the United States. Without safer cities where families can walk the street without danger of assault, robbery and even death, our democracy finds itself at a bad intersect and abyss.

Mayor Adams predecessor, Bill de Blasio, a die-hard progressive should join hands to assuage centrist bothered by his support about defunding police. Like every other leader before him better legacy remains an ideal.

Additionally, no meaningful public safety discussion should ignore homelessness and connection with mental illness. Presently in New York City have about 48,723 homeless consisting of 10,362 families and 15, 346 children. To ignore the challenges they face, stress they go through and crisis their situation often causes that invariably fuel the fire of winning the war on public safety is to do so at one’s peril. Since the advent of this pandemic, the subway has become a rendezvous for the homeless, lodging and stretching on the subway cars inconveniencing straphanger, until wearing of face masks at times the emanating odors can leave a whole subway car abandoned because the pungent smell can be unbearable, the ones that are mentally ill and not on medication often create havoc and engage in aggressive panhandling, some who perhaps have mental and emotional challenges remain a menace leading to concerned advocate calling for promulgation of new mental hygiene laws or strengthening of existing the Kendra’s Law, (Kendra’s Law of November 1999 (Kendra Webdale was pushed into the subway track by a mentally ill man) mandates involuntary outpatient commitment or Outpatient Treatment, grants judges the legal authority mandate treatment for those who are noncompliant with meds or a danger to themselves or to undergo psychiatric evaluation. Those are safeguards to help keep our communities and counties safe. The serious implementation of this law may have taken a back seat since the pandemic and should be urgently strengthened.

Other considerations such as deployment NYPD personnel and Mental Health Crisis teams for transit safety. Commissioner Ydanis Rodrigues as Commissioner for Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) should by now understands the magnitude of this problem and probably already at the drawing board working on urgent solutions to ameliorate them.

Addressing public safety in New York City may ultimately require some police officer’s reassignments from their desk jobs at our 123 precincts to the streets and subway where their training can better be utilized. Replacing NYPD officers will not be challenging at all. NYC has an army of retired folks, patriotic volunteers and community-minded individuals who want to serve their city. Let’s think out-of-the box and do what it takes to arrest this culprit that has become a menace to our City in recent months.

In the final analysis, our goal of making our city safer, require prudent mismanagement of resources, efficient manpower allocation, and streamlining of City bureaucracy are inevitable actions for a mayor Adams to advance his bold agenda to re-imagine post-pandemic NYC.

George Onuorah is the author of “The Political Diary of A Rising Son”, Advocate for Communities and Humanitarian. Former Candidate for New York City Council in 2021.