Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ripped Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of the explosion of shootings that have rocked New York City, including the city’s recent decision to disband the anti-crime unit.
Giuliani condemned de Blasio’s strategy on crime during his appearance on Fox & Friends on Wednesday, including the dissolution of an anti-crime unit and a $1 billion reduction in the New York City Police Department budget, a move Giuliani suggested will result in New Yorkers being shot.
“Mr. Mayor, Brooklyn Borough President Adams held up two baby shoes of a 1-year-old and talked about the latest victim of gun violence, and he called on the mayor to bring back … the anti-crime unit that might have been able to prevent a shooting like this,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said before asking, “Will [de Blasio] listen?”
Giuliani said that if he were currently mayor, he would reestablish the anti-crime unit and would “sure as heck be in the COMPSTAT room right now, and I’d be there all night — trying to figure out where the hot spots are and redeploying exactly the right police officers at exactly the right time.”
He added that the abolition of the anti-crime unit “was one of the critical five or six drastic mistakes de Blasio made.”
“I could turn this around in a month, one month, if you let me bring back the cops that I want and the programs that I want, all of which have been held constitutional by the Clinton Justice Department,” Giuliani said.
De Blasio’s relationship with the police force has been rocky since the beginning of his tenure as mayor. Giuliani advised de Blasio during the interview to focus on earning the trust of NYPD officers.
“They don’t trust him. They haven’t trusted him since the assassinations of the two officers in Brooklyn, when he called the police department racist and the guy came all the way from Baltimore and killed New York City policemen. So they don’t trust him. He has to get their trust back,” he said.
Giuliani also took a swipe at de Blasio’s reported penchant for a late start to the workday, saying, “I don’t know if Bill de Blasio stays up at night. I know he gets up very, very late in the morning.”
Early this week, black leaders in New York City asked de Blasio to reexamine the New York Police Department’s anti-crime unit amid the spike in shootings.
The anti-crime unit, which was made up of 600 plainclothes officers focused on getting guns off of the street, was disbanded in June amid nationwide Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests. The unit had a disproportionate number of police-involved shootings and complaints compared to other NYPD units.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who is black, told CBS 2 New York that the city should reevaluate the abolition of the anti-crime unit.
“Right now, bad guys are saying, ‘If you don’t see a blue and white, you can do whatever you want,’” he said.
Community activist Tony Herbert, who is also black, held up a pair of baby shoes during his call to bring back the unit, just days after a 1-year-old was shot and killed in Brooklyn.
“Babies are not supposed to be wearing these in a coffin,” he said. “The guns keep going off, and now, we have a 1-year-old — and the blood is on the hands of the mayor and the state Legislature.”
Some police officers were also unhappy with the city’s move to abolish the unit, including Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch.
“Anti-Crime’s mission was to protect New Yorkers by proactively preventing crime, especially gun violence,” Lynch said in a statement. “Shooting and murders are both climbing steadily upward, but our city leaders have decided that proactive policing isn’t a priority anymore. They chose this strategy. They will have to reckon with the consequences.”
De Blasio condemned the shootings over the weekend but did not offer any new solutions to the bloodshed, according to the local CBS outlet.
“This is not anything we can allow in our city. It is heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking for so many reasons and begins with the fact that there are just so many guns out there, and that is a New York tragedy,” he said Monday.
The mayor blamed the spike in violent crime on unemployment and boredom, saying, “So many people don’t have anything to do. They don’t have anywhere to go. They don’t have a job. They can’t go to school. They are dealing with so many challenges.”
Shootings in New York City are up 277% for the week compared to numbers from 2019.
On Monday alone, 17 people were shot across the city, 12 of them in Brooklyn. A high-ranking officer called those numbers “astronomical” for a Monday.
Giuliani advised de Blasio to tell officers he has their backs and say, “Look, I know you have to make tough decisions. I’ll support you if you’re right. I’m not just going to turn you over to the wolves. If you do something like what happened in Minneapolis, I’m going to see you go to jail for the rest of your lives.”
