NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams bragged in 2019 about being a better cop than his “cracker” colleagues in the NYPD, the Daily News has learned.
Adams, who was at the time gearing up to launch his campaign for mayor, went on the racially charged diatribe while at a private event in Harlem on Dec. 13, 2019, a video exclusively obtained by The News shows.
“Every day in the Police Department, I kicked those crackers’ a--,” Adams says in the video.
“Man, I was unbelievable in the Police Department with 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement,” he continued, referring to a police advocacy group he co-founded in the 1990s. “Became a sergeant, a lieutenant, and a captain. You know the story — some people all of a sudden trying to reinvent me. But the reality is what I was then is who I am now.”
Asked about the matter Friday, Adams apologized and sought to put his heated comments into context.
“I definitely apologize. Inappropriate, inappropriate comments, should not have been used,” said Adams, who retired from the NYPD in 2006 after more than two decades as a cop. “Someone asked me a question using that comment and playing on that word. I responded in that comment, but clearly, these comments should not have been used, and I apologize not only to those who heard it, but to New Yorkers because they should expect more from me. That was inappropriate.”
Adams went on in the video to discuss his forthcoming mayoral campaign, joking that he was expecting so much opposition that perhaps he should “grow a beard, smoke some weed and leave this stuff alone” instead.
”The people who say, ‘Where’s our real Black leaders?’ They’re going to say, ‘Who’s Eric? Why does Eric think he should be mayor?’ Well, Negro, you run. You run, go raise the $7 million,” he said. “Let me tell you something, man. They are lining up — ‘Eric can’t be mayor.’ In the corners of the city, they are lining up. They know me. They know what I’m about and they know what I’m going to do as the mayor of the City of New York. Listen, we’re not going to play this game.”
The video resurfaced on the heels of Adams attending funerals for Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora, two young NYPD officers killed by a gunman in Harlem last month.
Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association, the NYPD’s largest union, said Friday afternoon he had spoken to Adams about the video, but did not criticize him for it, instead asking his members to not “rush to outrage.”
“We have spent far too many hours together in hospital emergency rooms these past few weeks, and we’ve worked together for decades before that,” Lynch said. “A few seconds of video will not define our relationship. We have a lot of work to do together to support our members on the streets.”
Curtis Sliwa, Adams’ Republican opponent in last year’s mayoral election, was not as forgiving as Lynch.
“Here’s the guy who was so quick to call anyone who disagrees with him racist — not just Curtis Sliwa,” the Guardian Angels founder said. “Whenever he had an adversary, they were always racist. Well, this is clearly a racist statement, so what else have you said, Eric?”
The video was shot by Thomas Lopez-Pierre, a controversial former political candidate who has a history of anti-Semitic, racist and anti-police remarks.
When reached over the phone Friday, Lopez-Pierre defended Adams’ 2019 comments at the Harlem Business Alliance.
“This is how Black people talk. To us, it was family. We were having a conversation with family,” Lopez-Pierre said.
While giving a thumbs up to Adams’ jab at white cops, Lopez-Pierre said he’s disappointed by the mayor’s newly released anti-crime plan, which he claimed focuses too much on hiring more cops rather than creating economic opportunities for Black New Yorkers.
“More cops are going to get killed because Black men do not have opportunity,” Lopez-Pierre said. “I think it’s a great plan for white people to feel falsely safe.”
Other New Yorkers said Adams’ “cracker” bashing doesn’t reflect the mayor’s true personality.
"I don’t care because I met him and he is a lovely man,” said Silvana Conte, 66, a record shop owner in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. “People say stupid things sometimes. We’re human, that’s all.”
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