The NYPD’s new anti-gun unit has netted more than 100 arrests since it launched last month — and nearly 70 percent of those busted have a prior criminal history, officials said Sunday.
Mayor Eric Adams lauded the progress made by his Neighborhood Safety Teams, which hit the streets in mid-March in response to the Big Apple’s uptick in gun violence.
“We have to stop the flow of guns, but we also must do the jobs of getting the guns off the streets that’s on there now, and my anti-gun unit, they’re doing that,” Adams said on “Face the Nation” Sunday.
“Just a few weeks out, they removed over 20-something guns off the street. But here’s the interesting number — 70 percent of those who were carrying the guns had prior violent offenses.”
Since its March 14 launch, NSTs — a revamped version of the NYPD’s controversial plainclothes anti-crime unit — have made 101 arrests, 22 of which were for guns, a City Hall spokesman said, citing data through March 30. Seventy of those collars — or 69 percent — were of defendants with prior arrests, the rep said. And, of the 22 people busted with guns, 14 had prior criminal history.
The NSTs are a central piece to Adams’ plan to combat gun violence and the new unit was announced after two NYPD officers were shot and killed in Harlem.
The anti-crime unit was disbanded in the summer of 2020 by former Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, who said a “disproportionate” number of high-profile incidents involved the plainclothes cops.
Adams has repeatedly vowed that the new teams — whose uniforms clearly identify them as NYPD officers unlike the old plainclothes squads — will not repeat mistakes made by the “abusive” anti-crime units.
Previously, officials said the NSTs had nabbed 31 people and recovered 10 guns in its first week.
Among the anti-gun unit team’s busts was that of a 20-year-old accused Bloods member, who Adams dubbed “the poster child of the failing system.” The retired NYPD captain has repeatedly argued that Albany lawmakers should grant New York judges the authority to consider the dangerousness of criminal defendants during pre-trial court proceedings.
On Sunday, Adams also defended his prior warning to New York City residents to not film police officers making arrests at a close distance.
“Nothing is more dangerous than if a police officer is fighting with someone that has a gun is fighting with someone who has a gun and you have a person standing over him, taping that interaction. That is extremely dangerous,” he explained on the weekly morning show.
“So what we’re saying to New Yorkers is: film. [The] Eric Garner case, the young man filmed a safe distance away. He did not interrupt or interfere.”
He added, “That is how you film, you don’t do it [in a way that] endangers yourself, or that police officer who’s taking action.”
Last month, Adams slammed civilians who film police officers too closely while they’re making arrests, saying it creates a “dangerous environment” and makes the jobs of law enforcement more difficult.
“If an officer is on the ground wrestling with someone that has a gun, they should not have to worry about someone standing over them with a camera while they’re wrestling with someone,” he added during the press conference in Queens. “Not acceptable. It’s not going to continue to happen.”
Additional reporting by Tina Moore
