NYC Mayor Eric Adams says police departments should focus on officers’ ‘basic fitness’, not just training

Mayor of New York Eric Adamsa former New York Police Department captain who was also assaulted by police as a teenager, told CBS News on Tuesday that police departments need to be concerned with the “basic skills” of officers and recruits, especially more training.

In an extensive interview with CBS News’ top White House official Ed O’Keefe, Adams said it was “alarming and disturbing” to him that the Memphis officers who Tire Nichols was violently arrested then would have beaten him seemed to be so “comfortable”. Five former Memphis police officers have been fired and accused of murder Next nichols‘ dead, and two additional officers were statement of duties.

“You’re trained in the basic needs of a law enforcement officer, and everyone should have those basic needs,” Adams said. “…We sometimes believe, just because a person is a police officer, that they could do any job within law enforcement. But there are also those who lack the discipline of basic skill in need. That’s what we saw on full display during the assault in Memphis. They don’t have the basic skill. They seem too comfortable to carry out the No one was there to stop themselves from acting.

Adams said law enforcement should recruit the “best and brightest” from the black community and other communities, the same way the best and brightest are encouraged to become doctors and teachers.

“The one place we don’t go into communities and say we have to bring our privacy is law enforcement,” Adams said. “We say just the opposite.”

Adams said there was an “anti-police” campaign discouraging young people from being “salesmen” and joining law enforcement. That has to change, he says.

“We should have every sorority, fraternity, every church, every civil civic group, NAACP — let’s find our best and our brightest and say public safety is crucial to our communities, and it needs to be done right,” Adams said. “So we should be part of the police campaign that we want them to look like.”

Yet, Adams said, every day, men and women in uniform are in danger and “we cannot demonize them for the actions of those who have betrayed” their profession.

On a separate topic, Adams told O’Keefe that he spoke with President Joe Biden during his visit to New York on Tuesday on the fate of asylum seekers who came to New York. Texas Governor Greg Abbott was transport of migrants by bus to Democratic-run cities, including New York, with more than 40,000 migrants arriving in New York since the summer. On Sunday, Adams attempted to implement a plan moving single men from a downtown Manhattan hotel to an emergency shelter in Brooklyn has drawn backlash and dozens of migrants camped outside the hotel to avoid moving.

Adams pushed for the president to appoint some sort of czar to handle the influx of asylum seekers, and said a “decompression strategy is needed”.

“Yeah, the president gave me the opportunity to have a quick chat with him about asylum seekers, we want to follow up,” Adams said. “Because he too understands that the American dream must not turn into a nightmare. And the only way to do that is with good coordination. And I will continue to speak on behalf of those who pursue the American dream … All of us, no matter who we are, we all come from somewhere And there’s a reason the Statue of Liberty is in our harbor because for 400 years we’ve welcomed people to this city .

Adams said the president is “continually pushing Republicans” to endorse comprehensive immigration reform.

“That’s the heart of the matter,” Adams said. “It’s fire prevention. What we’re not getting right is fire right now. When my house is burning, I like to say, don’t talk to me about fire prevention tactics, we have to put out the fire. The fire is the proliferation of migrants arriving in cities like Chicago, New York, Houston, El Paso. It’s just not fair. A city shouldn’t have a national problem.

But Adams said “hell yeah,” he wanted Mr Biden to run for re-election despite the president’s age.