A Black Lives Matter of Greater New York activist referred to Mayor Eric Adams as a “white man in blackface” and blamed him for not tackling the increasing frequency of gun violence in the city.
Hawk Newsome, the co-founder of the New York-based BLM group, said during an interview Thursday evening on Fox’s America’s Newsroom that Adams has been “ineffective” at keeping the city safe. Adams, who faced threats of violence from Newsome last November for his planned crackdown on violence, was also described as being a “conservative-minded white man.”
“Don’t listen to what Eric Adams says. He gives great press statements. He’s the master of the press conference,” Newsome said. “Some kid dies, [and] he hugs their mother. He’s holding up sneakers. He’s crying.”
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Adams was elected mayor to “keep the city safe,” Newsome argued, adding that it has become a war zone despite having “billions of dollars in budget and 40,000 police officers” on payroll.
Newsome criticized a recent interview in which Adams responded to a question about increased policing in response to recent shootings by pointing the finger at the movement and asking, “What about BLM?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to organize people in our communities to go out and preach a message of love and unification in the streets,” Newsome said. “We’re going to take control of our cities because the government has failed us for decades.”
Host Bill Hemmer questioned whether the defund-the-police movement has “actually hurt the African American community” amid a rising black homicide rate, to which Newsome argued that it has not, explaining that the movement shifts funding from police departments into areas that would expand job opportunities or help the community.
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Adams, a former police captain who ran on a pledge to keep the city safe and bring back the plainclothes unit, was sworn into office Jan. 1.
“He is hopeful that more New Yorkers will stand up and show their outrage when innocent black and brown individuals, many of whom are children, are victims to gun violence,” Fabien Levy, the press secretary for Adams, told Fox News. “He will remain focused on ending gun violence across the city and will not respond to personal attacks that simply seek to divide us.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to Adams for a statement but did not receive a response back.
