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Eric Adams victory charts a course for how Democrats can win on police

07 July 2021
Dan Ackermann

Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain who's poised to become New York mayor after winning the Democratic primary last night, points a new path for Democrats to navigate the police issue.

Why it matters: With homicides up across the country, and cuts to police spending in several major cities, key Democrats fear that last year's defund-the-police rhetoric could haunt them in next year's midterms. And Republicans plan to make crime a top issue.

Adams, 60, who retired as an NYPD captain after a 22-year law-enforcement career, spoke to rattled New Yorkers with a twin message of "the justice we deserve and the safety we need."

  • The win by Adams, currently Brooklyn borough president, "permissions every Democrat around the nation to argue for safety and justice" over defunding police, Howard Wolfson, top Democratic strategist and former deputy mayor for Mike Bloomberg, told me.
  • The win will "chart a course for Democrats around the country," Wolfson tweeted.

Adams' campaign site says: "As a founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, Eric would often police the streets in a bulletproof vest one day during the high-crime 1980’s and 1990’s and protest bad behavior by cops the next, marching side-by-side with his fellow civil rights advocates."

  • His closing message included the words "for a secure future."

Between the lines: Adams recreated the Biden coalition in New York — strong among blue-collar and non-college educated voters, Wolfson points out.

Another top Democratic operative told me: "No one thought crime (not how we police crime) would be an issue in this campaign (or in the country) a year ago."

  • "Eric's bio matches the voters' concerns. Voters in NYC are progressive and care about BLM [Black Lives Matter] and policing, but they also don’t want to defund the PD."

The bottom line: Many voters of color don’t want to defund the police, because they deal with some of the worst of the crime. The Adams model: Reform, don’t defund, policing. Take both crime and police misconduct seriously.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.