NYC Mayor Adams appeals to feds for help on guns

WASHINGTON — New York City Mayor Eric Adams in an interview on Sunday pointed to the recent fatal shooting of a 12-year-old Brooklyn boy to repeat his call for Congress to pass stricter gun control laws.

Adams, appearing in a pretaped segment on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” said critics who argue New York's strict gun control laws show that restrictions have been ineffective in stopping a rise in gun violence, should “go visit” Kade Lewin, the 12-year-old who was shot and killed in a parked car Thursday while eating dinner with his family.

Authorities have said the boy was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between occupants of two other vehicles.

“We need to stop criticizing good, proper law enforcement with the proper proactive things to keep guns out of the hands of young people,” Adams said.

The Democratic mayor was in Washington over the weekend and met with White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on Saturday.

He told “Face the Nation” that he and Klain spoke about the need to stop “the flow of guns through our inner cities.”

Adams, who has twice met with Biden in the White House on the issue of gun control, urged Congress to “put money into” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He also said federal leaders must come up “with clear messages around ghost guns,” which are typically sold online as untraceable ready-to-assemble weapons.

“We have to stop the flow of guns, but we must also do the job of getting the guns off the streets that's on there now,” Adams said, before touting a new NYPD “anti-gun unit.”

Adams defended his push for the NYPD to step-up enforcement of what he called “quality of life issues.” Critics have argued Adams’ policies amount to a return to the “broken windows” strategy of policing that took aim at offenders of low-level crimes. Criminal justice reform activists have argued those policies took disproportionate aim at minorities and the poor.

“You can have the justice that we deserve with the safety we need,” Adams said when asked about critics’ concerns. “Here's what we talk about when we say quality of life — not allowing someone to go into a store, steal what they want, and then walk out, jumping the turnstiles, not paying your fare in the subway system … also looking at just open drug use, injecting yourself with heroin in our parks in front of our children, loud noise, just being disorderly."

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.