Former New York Gov. David Paterson praised New York Mayor-elect Eric Adams on Sunday for standing up to threats of riots from Black Lives Matter (BLM).
Speaking on “The Cats Roundtable” radio show on WABC 770 AM hosted by John Catsimatidis, the state’s first Black governor said that fellow Democrat Eric Adams “really demonstrated the poise and the care that [he] wants to bring to the city when he said he will not allow that kind of activity to go on in my city. ... He should be commended. It’s fantastic what he did.”
Paterson explained that Adams, who is also Black, met with BLM representatives, because he has an open mind and wanted to hear what they had to say, but then the organization threatened to start riots and have bloodshed if the mayor restored some of the undercover police activities that had existed for years in the city until recently.
Paterson lamented that BLM, which he said had started as a peaceful group that was trying to do good for the Black community, has changed into a violent organization that has lost sight of its original goals.
The former governor added that the intention of Adams “when he brings back the undercover police, [is for] a completely different plan for how they are going to be trained than they were before” so that previous abuses of the system that sometimes harmed minority communities would be averted.
Paterson stressed that the revived undercover police force “will definitely improve conditions around the city,” because people are afraid to move around after dark. It’s getting like it was at other times” in the city's history.
Paterson also commented on the fact that the BLM representatives secretly recorded the conversation, indicating it was a cheap shot and saying that “the next time some group wants to meet with them, [Adams] might want to consider whether or not they’re recording the meeting.”
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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