Shooting Death of Rookie NYPD Cop Shakes the Big Apple
--
“It’s our city against the killers,” Mayor Eric Adams warned his fellow New Yorkers. Can he turn things around?
“It is our city against the killers,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams told the press on Friday, speaking from a Harlem hospital as an NYPD officer lay inside, fighting for his life: “This was an attack on the city of New York.”
“It is time for us to save our city,” Mayor Adams continued before promising: “No one will divide this city with their violence.”
After the shooting death of 22-year old rookie NYPD officer Jason Rivera last week, and the critical wounding of his 27-year old partner Wilbert Mora, the outpouring of community support has been overwhelming. Rivera’s funeral, which turned NYC into a sea of blue, was a rare moment of unity in a city increasingly beset by violence and tragedy.
“This system continues to fail us,” Officer Rivera’s widow told a packed St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Friday to a standing ovation. “We are not safe anymore, not even the members of the service.”
It is a call being echoed from nearly all sides in New York City, nowhere more strongly than from the Mayor’s office. Mayor Adams himself admitted recently that not even he feels safe on the NYC subway anymore after a woman was pushed in front of a train two weeks ago.
Amid skyrocketing levels of violent crime in NYC, Mayor Adams unveiled his “Blueprint to End Gun Violence” this week.
“New York City has been tested to its core in the first month of 2022,” the Blueprint began. “These weeks have been among the most violent in recent memory, most of it caused by a crisis of gun violence that continues to plague our communities. Every New Yorker has been reminded: Gun violence is an epidemic that does not discriminate. It has tragically reached our NYPD officers, our young people working late to support their families, and even a child not yet one year old.”
“We will do everything in our power as a city to end this crisis,” the Blueprint pledged. “The Adams Administration will enhance NYPD efforts to fight crime with targeted, precision policing that removes guns from our streets; expand the work of the successful anti-violence Crisis Management System (CMS) movement…
