Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams experienced an epiphany of biblical proportions after discovering just how badly the liberal city had been managed for the past few years.
According to the New York Post, Adams “said the scales fell from his eyes when he began reviewing internal city operations following his swearing in moments after midnight on New Year’s Day.”
The phrase comes from the account of Saul’s conversion in the book of Acts.
“Let me tell you something: When I started looking into this, I was shocked at how bad this place is,” the mayor said Monday in his interview with the Post, which was conducted during a three-hour subway ride.
“It was probably the third — third or fourth week in January. I spent a lot of time in the office. And I started peeling back layers and what it started to unveil to me is how we just had this good shell, but underneath — it’s bad,” he said.
As a reminder, radical leftist Bill de Blasio was mayor from 2014 through 2021, during which time crime skyrocketed, homelessness soared and the city got dirtier and less liveable.
Adams told the Post he was “shocked” that municipal bureaucrats had grossly misused resources, especially the police force.
Tragically, this incompetence occurred as the city was being engulfed by Black Lives Matter riots and the “defund the police” push in 2020.
What’s truly shocking is that the mayor was “shocked” at how inefficiently New York City was run for years. Has he been living under a rock?
As a Brooklyn native and a former captain of the New York Police Department, Adams undoubtedly saw with his own eyes how crime had surged to terrifying levels in recent years.
Combined violent and property crimes for the week ending 6/26 rose 29% over the same week in 2021, continuing the pattern set over recent weeks. Year-to-date major crimes are up 38%. Burglaries are by far the greatest problem.
These #’s reflect police reports – not court cases. pic.twitter.com/bSo9jiqwtK— Crime in NYC (@CrimeInNYC) June 28, 2022
At one point, Adams was also an officer with the city’s transit police, so it’s disingenuous of him to suggest he had no idea how bad things had gotten.
During the three-term tenure of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg (who was voted into office as a Republican), the city was dramatically safer, cleaner and more liveable.
Today, New York streets and subways have devolved into killing fields where criminals run amok after being emboldened by Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies.
.@AOC said “Defund the Police” and now we’ve got mothers being shot in the back of the head right in the evening sunlight.
This isn’t a “bad neighborhood” – it’s the Upper East Side.
This city has become a hellscape and @AOC is the reason why. pic.twitter.com/JwWAx1JJM9
— Desi Cuellar (@DesiJCuellar) June 30, 2022
The city’s catastrophic decline began shortly after de Blasio took office and escalated during his tenure.
Adams had touted himself as a Democrat who would be tough on crime. So far, however, he has done little to combat the terrifying violence roiling his city except screech about “gun control.”
For the record, New York has among the strictest gun laws in the country. But that has not stopped criminal thugs from getting their hands on guns — illegally.
We lost a 20 year old woman on the Upper East Side tonight.
She was pushing a stroller when a gunman took her life.
More guns in our city means more lives lost. It means more babies crying as those who love them lie dead.
We cannot allow this epidemic to keep claiming lives.
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) June 30, 2022
It’s great that Adams admits that things are “bad” in New York. But it seems he’s merely trying to deflect responsibility and accountability for the dismal state of his city right now.
The next few months will determine if this mayor lives up to his campaign promises to restore order. The clock is ticking, and New Yorkers are getting impatient.
