If the residents of New York City thought the last eight years with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s clown show were a laugh, they won’t be disappointed with the first term of Eric Adams.
He hadn’t even taken office when he embarrassed the city by appointing a new police commissioner in front of a mural that depicted a cop killer and a terrorist mass murderer. His deputy mayor for public safety is an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal corruption case.
Now, using the excuse that “white supremacists” threaten his security, he’s hired his little brother as second in command of the New York Police Department. Little brother’s previous management experience: assistant parking lot chief at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Thus is the new administration of the city off to a running start. Ridicule the city’s cops, retain corrupt officials, and gin up a fake security threat to justify nepotism.
Defends Decision
Adams defended the decision to hire his brother Bernard in a chin-wag with CNN leftist Jake Tapper. Tapper’s producer was forced out of his job in connection with the network’s second major child-rape scandal.
What the Adams boys will do about child rape in New York we don’t know. We do know that the new mayor apparently thinks white supremacists are riding high in New York.
“Let me be clear on this: My brother is qualified for the position,” Adams said:
Number one, he will be in charge of my security, which is extremely important to me at a time when we see an increase in white supremacy and hate crimes. I have to take my security in a very serious way.
How well a seasoned parking lot attendant and former police sergeant will do that job we don’t know. Before he takes over, the city’s Conflict of Interest Board must OK the appointment.
The mayor is convinced, though, that mischief is afoot, and hateful whites are behind it.
During an unrelated press conference Sunday, Adams added that “anarchists” also are among the groups his brother can best protect him from, calling their security arrangement “extremely unique.”
“Protection is personal. You have an increase of anarchists in this city, country. We have a serious problem with white supremacy. And when you talk about this type of security that I want, it’s extremely unique. I don’t want to be away from my public,” he said in Manhattan.
“I trust my brother. My brother understands me,” he continued. “And if I have to put my life in someone’s hands, I want to put it in the hands of a person that I trust deeply, because that is a very personal process of your security.”
For its part, NYPD is silent on whether moonshine-drinking Klansmen in pickup trucks adorned with Confederate flags are about to besiege the city. “It remains the general practice of the NYPD not to discuss the specifics regarding security or threats.”
Bernard Adams told the Post that “he is set to oversee governmental affairs, in a civilian position that typically comes with a salary of around $242,000.”
The new mayor says his “brother has a community-affairs background, that balance that I need, he understands law enforcement.… I need someone that I trust around me during these times with my security, and I trust my brother deeply.”
So the mayor, terrified that white supremacists are plotting against him, is entrusting his safety to a man who supervised parking lots and worked in community affairs.
Crooks and Cop Killers
Adams also chose the estimable Phil Banks, NYPD’s former chief, as deputy mayor for public safety, the Post reported.
Banks is an “unindicted co-conspirator in a federal police corruption probe,” and while “never charged in the case,” the feds “probed ‘hundreds of thousands’ of dollars in Banks’ account.”
“An FBI investigation found about $300,000 in ‘unexplained’ cash deposits into Banks’ accounts between 2007 and 2013, the Post reported in 2018. The money, the FBI said, had “the hallmarks of ‘money laundering.’”
Adams argues that Banks did not commit a crime.
In December, Adams appointed his new police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, in front of a mural with the visages of Nat Turner and Assata Shakur.
Turner led a slave revolt in Virginia and in which 55 whites, mostly women and children, were hacked to death.
In 1973, Shakur — real name Joanne Chesimard — murdered New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster. She is still on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s communist district attorney, is named after the murderess.