Biden, mayors discuss how to deal with rising crime rates, gun violence

Eric Adams, New York City Mayoral Candidate, Brooklyn Borough President: “The question is, as we mentioned in the meeting today, we spent too much time looking at the role the police played. And as a former police officer, as a former, as you say, Republican, as a current Democrat, as a former person who was arrested and beat by police officers, I’m so many formers, I’m trying to figure out the current. One thing I’m clear about, the prerequisite to prosperity is public safety and justice. And if we don’t have them both together, it doesn’t matter how many police officers you put on the street. We can’t continue to respond to symptoms. It’s time to respond to the underlying causes of violence in our city. And I have to take my hat off to this president. Why did it take so long before we heard the gunshots that families were listening and hearing every night? Other communities are waking up to alarm clocks. Communities in Black, brown and poor people are waking up to gunshots. And this president said this is not the America we’re going to live in. And that is why I’m here. And I’m so proud to have been part of this meeting. And I’m proud of these men and women who are here today because this is representative of what makes us great as a country. We’ve abandoned Black and brown and poor communities in this country. We responded immediately when we saw those shootings with assault rifles that hit our college campuses in suburban counties. And it was the right thing to do. But the problem in America is the handgun. Yet the demographics of the victims are black, brown and poor. We have ignored it for far too long.”

CJ Davis, Memphis Police Chief: “We have to find balance, we can’t continue to arrest crime away, we need to get guns off the street, hold people accountable and ensure that our communities get the kind of protection that they need. Right now, Black and brown communities are being terrorized from gun violence. We need to ensure that we give people an opportunity to stay out of the criminal justice system. But those individuals who continue to commit violent crime, they need to be dealt with by the criminal justice system. So we have to have a balance.”