Bernard Adams, the brother of newly installed New York City Mayor Eric Adams, had a short-lived tenure as deputy police commissioner.
His portfolio has narrowed after a kick down a few flights of stairs, meaning a demotion. Although the New York Times didn’t quite put it that way.
Now, Bernard Adams will head the mayor’s personal security detail, an odd change given that the mayor hired him for the previous position precisely to put him in charge of personal security.
Whatever.
Veteran Cop
Though the New York Post broke the story about Adams’ original job as deputy commissioner, the Times has divulged that Adams won’t take a top position in NYPD after all.
“Bernard Adams, 56, a former police sergeant who retired from the force in 2006 after 20 years, has been given one of the most sensitive, elite jobs in city government: overseeing the unit that will protect the mayor’s physical safety,” the newspaper reported:
As a community affairs sergeant, Mr. Adams helped support the security effort at various big events, including the U.S. Open, city officials said. His most recent job was at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, where he worked in parking administration.
The mayor, who said on Sunday that white supremacy and “anarchists” are on the rise, suggested that he can trust no one in the Police Department as much as he can his own kin.
“Personal security — my life, my life — I want in the hands of my brother with his 20-year law enforcement experience,” Mr. Adams said. “He has the police experience, but he also has the personal experience. He knows his brother, and he’s going to keep his brother safe.”
The Times observed that the younger Adams supervised a staff of “40 as commanding officer of community affairs for Queens North.”
After he retired from NYPD, he landed at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he became deputy minister of parking lots:
During his 13-year tenure at Virginia Commonwealth University, Mr. Adams “did not provide executive protection services,” Thomas Gresham, a university spokesman, said. His most recent position there was as assistant director for parking at one of the university’s two main campuses.
All of which means that even if he must rely on real security men to guard the mayor, he’ll still be useful. When the mayor’s motorcade can’t find a parking space. Bernard Adams will know how to block off the street with orange cones. Better yet, he’ll know how to stack them to fit in the limo‘s trunk when it’s time to depart.
The Post rightly called the new job a “demotion.” Instead of earning $240,000 a year to stack cones, the new security chief will earn a mere $210,000, a pay cut that might confirm to the woke that white supremacists are still running the show behind the scenes. The media salary for a family of three in the city is $107,400.
Conflict Of Interest
Skeptics aren’t too happy about the appointment — either the first or the second — which might just be the most notorious case of nepotism since President Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert F., as attorney general. Or maybe since Caligula appointed his horse, Incitatus, a Consul of Rome.
Explained Richard Briffault, a law professor at Columbia University and former chief of the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board that will rule on the appointment, “this does appear to be a serious problem. A public servant, which includes the mayor, can’t use his position as mayor to obtain a financial gain for a sibling.”
The mayor obviously does not agree. He isn’t much worried about appearances.
Former police chief Phil Banks will be deputy mayor for public safety despite being an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal corruption case. Banks quit his job during that probe, which uncovered $300,000 in “unexplained” money in his bank accounts.
Eric Adams is a retired police captain. The new mayor demonstrated his commitment to law and order by appointing his new police commissioner in front of a mural that depicted cop killer Assata Shakur and mass murderer Nat Turner.
