Mayor Adams attacks primary foes condemning Cop City plan: Not gonna listen to those defund-the-policers

Mayor Eric Adams attacked his election rivals Sunday for ripping his plan to build a pricey public-safety facility — saying the “defund-police, bail-reform candidates” simply don’t know what they’re talking about.Hizzoner’s Democratic primary-race opponents have used the blueprints for the new $225 million complex as a campaign-trail bludgeon against the incumbent mayor, saying the 16-agency training ground would be a waste of money that won’t help the NYPD retain and expand its police force.The mayor brushed off the criticism Sunday, saying after a brief sermon at New Mount Pisgah Baptist Church East in Jamaica, Queens, that his foes fundamentally misunderstand both the need and the process.“We’ve heard several of the defund-police, bail-reform candidates who are talking about why we should not have the public-safety academy,” Adams said. “This once again, it just shows the lack of full understanding of how to ensure the city’s number one issue: public safety.“It shows their lack of understanding of the budget,” he continued.

“These are capital dollars, they cannot be used for retention” of law enforcement.“But this administration took one of the goals of the law-enforcement academy and turned it into the use for several of our agencies — park police, sheriffs, corrections, all of them coming together, dismantling the walls that we had in our law enforcement community previously to unify our law enforcement communities,” he said of the project, which has been derided by lefty critics as “Cop City.”“And so we’re not gonna listen to those defund-the-policers,” he added, referring to many candidates’ previous support for defunding the cops in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder.Adams has said grouping public-safety training facilities together will be more efficient and save taxpayers money.His opponents disagree.Mayoral candidate and state Sen.

Jessica Ramos (D-Queens) argued the money would be better spent on...