Mayoral hopefuls Eric Adams and Maya Wiley traded barbs Sunday over Wiley’s plan to trim funding for the NYPD by $1 billion.
“We want justice and equality and safety,” Adams, the Brooklyn Borough president, said at a rally in Harlem. “But when you start doing it with policies while young people are being shot in our streets, that can be dangerous to our children and our families.”
“We have to have intervention and prevention.”
Adams’ comments echoed those he shared on Saturday after Bronx-Queens Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Wiley in her bid for City Hall — a coup for the civil rights lawyer.
Adams on Saturday said Wiley and Ocasio-Cortez “want to slash the police department budget and shrink the police force at a time when black and brown babies are being shot in our streets.”
But Wiley, who supports NYPD cuts to fund “alternatives for policing,” said Sunday that the Brooklyn Beep’s barbs “sounded like the talking points of Tucker Carlson,” in a reference to the Fox News host.
“It sounded like the kind of talking points that is actually going to send us backward into the discrimination, humiliation and trauma that was not smart policing — it was unconstitutional policing,” Wiley said at a rally Sunday on Wall Street.
“A smart policing is a policing focused on the job of policing, but that includes recognizing the balance that is the investment in our community-based organizations,” she said. “When I am mayor, we will not follow a law that tells us that we have to choose between safety and having our rights.”
Polls show Adams and businessman Andrew Yang leading the Democratic primary race to fill Mayor Bill de Blasio’s seat — with former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia gaining ground.
But AOC’s endorsement provided a significant boost for Wiley’s campaign.
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