New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Tuesday discussed the importance of the police department's gang database as a tool to combat crime after alleged teen gang members attacked police officers in Times Square.
Suspects ranging in age from 12- to 19-years-old were involved and arrested after a May 2 melee in Times Square, where they were involved in a "wolf pack style robbery," according to Tisch. As police officers tried to break up the robbery, they were ambushed and pelted with scooters and other weapons, she said.
The perpetrators are part of Los Diablos de la 42, a youth subset of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, according to Adams and Tisch. Several of the suspects were quickly caught as they were listed in the gang database, Tisch said.
The mayor stressed the importance of the attackers being properly recognized with the help of the gang database, which the NYPD has been using since 2013.
“When someone openly assaults a police officer, you are attacking our symbol of safety, and it cannot be tolerated,” said Adams.
Social justice advocates have been pushing the City Council to pass legislation to abolish the database, defining it as a racist tool that disproportionately targets young people of color with little to no evidence of criminal involvement and of being in a gang.
Tisch, however, pushed back on this idea.
“It absolutely defies common sense that our City Council is looking to abolish this database," she said. "We need our City Council to stop legislating against our cops and to start legislating for public safety."
The police commissioner also acknowledged that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was present at an undisclosed NYPD precinct on Sunday. She said she did not know the reason for their presence and the matter is being looked into.
“We will, of course, continue to work with our federal partners on criminal enforcement. But I will say it once again, the NYPD does not engage in civil immigration enforcement,” said Tisch.
The mayor also reiterated that he did not think Rikers Island can close by the 2027 deadline. When asked whether he thought Rikers Island can be fixed and continue to operate, he said he would like to reexamine what the law states.
"I think there's a great deal of things we could do but right now the City Council must re-examine that," he added.
Meanwhile, the mayor said former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who announced that he will start an independent party on Tuesday and run on two party lines in the November mayoral election, seemed to be copying his policy ideas on housing and mental health.
“I really need to have my meeting location swept because he's obviously– all he's doing is looking at Eric Adams' playbook," the mayor said.
Adams said his opponent is simply checking campaign boxes, including showing up at Black churches on the weekends and tweeting about it.
“This is going to be an election with a lot of twists and turns, a lot of uncertainty. You guys have not seen the beginning of how many twists and turns this election is going to have,” he said.
