New york city  mayor eric adams
© ohn Minchillo/APNew York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a news conference at City Hall in Manhattan, New York on Monday, Jan. 24, 2022.
Mayor Adams announced Monday that he's bringing back the NYPD's controversial contingents of plainclothes cops as part of a wide-ranging plan to crack down on gun violence in the wake of a rash of deadly shootings across the city.

The plainclothes units โ€” which were disbanded by former Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration in 2020 amid a national reckoning over police brutality โ€” will be deployed to 30 precincts where 80% of the city's violent crimes are reported, Adams said at City Hall.

About 400 cops are expected to join the new units, dubbed "Neighborhood Safety Teams." They will begin hitting the streets over the next three weeks "with a focus on gun violence," according to Adams.

"We will have boots on the ground on every block," said Adams, who declared gun violence "a public health crisis" and "the number one threat in our city."

Jason Rivera Wilbert Mora nypd shot
© NYPDNYPD Officer (left) and NYPD Officer Wilbert Mora (right)
The plan for more aggressive policing โ€” which marked Adams' first major policy announcement since taking office on Jan. 1 โ€” comes on the heels of a shooting in Harlem this past Friday that killed rookie NYPD Officer Jason Rivera and wounded his partner, Officer Wilbert Mora, who remains in critical condition in a Manhattan hospital.

Accounting for the Friday night tragedy, five NYPD cops and many more civilians, including an 11-month-old baby, have been shot in the city since Adams was sworn in a few weeks ago โ€” putting pressure on the mayor to fulfill his campaign promise of making the city safer.

The new plan, which included a slate of concrete policing policy shifts as well as pleas for state and federal legislators to amend or enact laws, will deliver change "quickly," Adams pledged.

But he conceded it won't immediately end the scourge of gun violence.

"This blueprint to end gun violence will not end this crisis overnight," he said. "But it will represent the biggest action in years to protect New York City."

Law enforcement advocates, including the NYPD's largest union, the Police Benevolent Association, hailed Adams' plan as a robust step in the right direction. But it drew backlash from progressive Democrats and criminal justice reform activists.

They were especially incensed by the return of the plainclothes units, which long faced accusations of disproportionally targeting Black and Hispanic New Yorkers in addition to being involved in some of the city's most infamous police killings, including the 2014 death of Eric Garner.
Queens Councilwoman Tiffany Cabรกn police reform NYC
© New York Daily NewsQueens Councilwoman Tiffany Cabรกn
"Much in the mayor's plan is cause for deep concern," said Queens Councilwoman Tiffany Cabรกn, a former public defender and influential member of the Council's large progressive faction.

"Particularly troubling is the mayor's proposed revival of the NYPD's plainclothes unit. The fact is that unit was ineffective at reducing gun violence," Cabรกn said, noting that the department's own data showed shootings in the city dropped by 19.5% the year after the units were disbanded.
nypd plain clothes officers
© NYPDAnti-crime unit plainclothes officers are pictured in an undated file photo
But Adams, a retired NYPD captain who has a long history of fighting systemic racism in the department, said there will be guardrails in place to make sure "mistakes of the past" aren't repeated.

For starters, all members of the plainclothes units will be required to wear body cameras that must be on at all times while they're on duty. They will also undergo intense training and vetting to make sure only "the best" cops make the cut, Adams said.

In another step away from the units of the past, Adams said members of the new teams will wear some "identifiable" piece of clothing to make sure New Yorkers understand they are NYPD officers, such as a windbreaker jacket with "Police" printed across the back.

"Not the way it was before when they were not identifiable at all. You didn't know who's jumping out the car at you and that created a lot of hostility," he said.

Adams also voiced support for instating a residency requirement for NYPD officers, by which they would have to live in the city in order to serve in the department โ€” a priority for police reform advocates, who say it would improve relations between cops and the communities they protect.

In addition to resurrecting the plainclothes teams, Adams' plan will pull hundreds of officers off of desk duty and deploy them into the streets and subways on patrol. In particular, more manpower and resources will be dedicated to the NYPD's gun violence suppression unit, which focuses on hunting down weapons traffickers.

Working in concert with State Police, the NYPD will also begin performing more frequent "spot checks" of travelers arriving at bus and train stations, like Manhattan's Port Authority. The checks will allow cops to confiscate more guns making their way into New York from other states, according to Adams' plan.

On an investigative level, the plan orders the NYPD to begin using "new technology" โ€” including facial recognition โ€” to find and arrest people who use and sell guns.

Turning to Washington, Adams urged Congress to adopt long-stalled gun control legislation, including a bill that would make background checks for weapon purchases mandatory on a national level.

There's also work to do in Albany, Adams said.

He urged state legislators to revise the 2020 bail reform laws, which ended cash bail for most nonviolent crimes, including some weapon possession charges. He said judges should be given back autonomy to consider a defendant's "dangerousness" before potentially releasing them without bail.

He also said state lawmakers should allow criminal prosecution of teenagers caught with guns, as opposed to such cases being automatically transferred to family court, as is currently the case.

"It is being used as a loophole for gang members to demand young people under 18 take the fall for guns that are not theirs," Adams said.

On bail reform, the mayor may have an ally in Gov. Hochul, who recently voiced skepticism about some crimes not being bail eligible in New York.

But Democratic leaders in the Legislature have not given any indication that they are prepared to tweak the laws.

In a joint statement, the Legal Aid Society and public defense attorney groups from all boroughs except Staten Island slammed Adams' proposed rollback of the bail reforms as misguided.

"The data is clear: bail reform has not contributed to any increase in crime; rather, it has helped address the crisis in our local jails and allowed New Yorkers to remain safely at home with their families and communities while they fight their cases," the statement read. "The proposal to upend New York's decades-old bail system by attempting to predict a person's risk of future 'dangerousness' invites racial discrimination into our courtrooms."

Adams' public safety plan is likely to set off a battle with the Council's vocal progressive flank, which could complicate negotiations over his first city budget in coming weeks.

Still, Adams did receive some praise from the left wing of the political spectrum for a part of his plan that proposes more funding for mental health services and job development for at-risk youth.

"These efforts will go a long way towards stabilizing communities in need of investment and resources," the public defender groups said.
Chris Sommerfeldt is a reporter covering City Hall and all things NYC politics for the Daily News. Prior, Chris covered the Trump and Biden administrations, Congress and national politics. He began working for the Daily News in 2015 as a general assignment reporter. His superpower is biking everywhere, no matter the distance or the weather.