Adams rejects assemblywoman’s challenge to debate bail reform
Mayor Eric Adams rejected a state legislator’s challenge Wednesday to debate her over his plan to toughen the state’s bail law — saying she should instead take up the issue with a mother whose baby was injured by a stray bullet and two recently slain NYPD cops.
“I don’t think you should debate me,” Adams told Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn).
“You should debate the 11-month-old baby’s mother. You should debate the two police officers that we lost.”
Adams was then interrupted by Walker, who angrily accused Hizzoner of “making this a political issue.”
“You don’t have to tell me to debate a person who lost an 11-month-old child because I lost a brother at the age of 19 years old to gun violence,” she said.
Walker also accused Adams of “adopting the rhetoric” of people who say that “racially insinuated criminal justice reform in our country is harming our city.”
Adams, a former NYPD captain, told Walker, “I’m not using rhetoric, sister. I don’t use rhetoric.”
“We philosophically disagree on the impact of this small number of people who are using the bail system to perpetuate violence in communities like yours and mine,” said Adams, who was previously Brooklyn’s borough president.
The heated exchange took place during a virtual, joint legislative committee meeting over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $216 billion budget proposal after Walker tried to quiz Adams over the impact of the state’s controversial 2019 bail reform measures.
Adams has called on state lawmakers to amend the rules by allowing judges to consider the “dangerousness” of defendants before deciding whether to release them from custody pending disposition of the charges against them.
Walker said Adams’ plan was “not a tweak, but it is a wholesale change to our bail system.”
“I do challenge you to a debate with respect to bail reform and the effects it has been having with respect to an alleged raise in crime in the city of New York, where we are seeing crime in the rise all across the country, even in states where bail reform is not a thing,” Walker said.
Although Adams didn’t take the bait, he later told Walker that he hoped to “further this conversation” with her during a planned visit to Albany next week.
