Eric Adams says Carl Heastie agreed to review NYC repeat offender data
Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday that he had a “great” talk with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie about rolling back the state’s bail-reform law to target the unrepentant criminals terrorizing the Big Apple.
“I had a long conversation with the speaker of the Assembly, and we agreed to look over some of the data that the New York City Police Department is going to present on how we’re having too many repeated offenders on bail-eligible, non-bail-eligible crime,” Adams said.
“And it was a great, great conversation.”
Adams added: “We’re gonna continue to be vociferous on this topic because New Yorkers, I believe, deserve better.”
A spokesman for Heastie (D-The Bronx) tweeted: “The bulk of the Speaker’s conversation with the Mayor centered around the fact that the crimes he was referring to were bail eligible and detention eligible in family court.”
“The Mayor asked if he could share some data and the Speaker said of course,” spokesman Mike Whyland added.
Heastie has previously resisted Adams’ repeated efforts to amend the controversial 2019 bail-reform law and accused critics of spreading “misinformation” about its impact on crime to “make for good campaigns.”
During a news conference at JFK Airport in Queens, Adams said the crime problem plaguing the Big Apple involved “more than” just bail reform because “our criminal justice system is off the rails.”
“It includes what the prosecutors are doing, what our judges are doing, what the corporation counsels are doing, what [the Administration for Children’s Services] is doing,” he said.
“It’s the entire criminal justice system that we must look at and [if] we try to piecemeal and put a Band-Aid on a cancerous sore, we’re not going to heal the problem.”
Adams’s remarks came one day after both Heastie and Gov. Kathy Hochul rejected his call for a special session of the state Legislature to address “the violence we’re seeing of repeated offenders.”
The request echoed that of Republican lawmakers who demanded the repeal of the bail-reform law following last week’s upstate attack on GOP gubernatorial candidate and outgoing US Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Long Island.)
