Andrew Yang says New York cannot “defund the police” after shooting

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Following the Times Square shooting Saturday, Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang said that the city cannot just “defund the police.”
• Yang said that New Yorkers need the NYPD in order to solve the crimes in the city.
• Three bystanders including one four-year-old kid were the victims of the Saturday shooting.

During a Sunday morning press conference at the Crossroads of the World in New York City, Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang said that the city cannot afford to “defund the police” amid the recent shooting in Times Square.

“The truth is that New York City cannot afford to defund the police,” Yang said, as he stood near the site of the fatal shooting Saturday.

“When I talk to New Yorkers I get a very different message every single day,” he said. “New Yorkers are concerned about rising rates of violent crime, petty crime, street homelessness. This is what we are seeing, and we need our city’s leaders to step up right now.”

One of the leading candidates for the June 22 mayoral primary, Yang said that the latest shooting emphasized the police mandate of safeguarding New Yorkers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Nothing works in our city without public safety, and for public safety we need the police,” Yang said. “My message to the NYPD is this: New York needs you. Your city needs you. We need you to do your jobs professionally, responsibly, and justly.”

He added: “And as you do these things, the people of New York will have your backs. I will have your back. Defund the Police is wrong for New York City.”

Should he become the mayor, Yang said that he would “appoint reform-minded officers to help get guns out of our communities” and place more police to communities that have high rates of gun violence. 

Meanwhile, another mayoral candidate Eric Adams has criticized Yang for speaking too late over public safety concerns. He said that Yang only cared about the Times Square shooting since the area was just beside his apartment vicinity.

“For Andrew Yang to stand here and all of a sudden realize this threat in our city, and why? Because of what he stated — ‘This happened blocks from my house.’ Well you know what, Andrew? These shootings have been happening blocks from my house for years, and blocks from the houses of poorer New Yorkers for years,” Adams said on Sunday.

“It is time for us to recognize [gun violence] when it is in every square block of our city, and shame on you for not realizing that,” he said.

Adams repeated his stance that the NYPD should re-assemble a plainclothes anti-crime unit that would aim to get rid of illegal guns, which was debunked by another liberal mayoral candidate Maya Wiley.

Three civilians involving two women and one four-year-old child were injured during the shooting incident on Saturday. All of them are now in stable condition.

Source: New York Post