Fed up with seeing cops staring at their phones instead of patrolling the subway, Mayor Eric Adams had a request for New Yorkers who spotted the same thing: send him a photo.
"Let me know, because I'll go to that district the next day and see exactly what's happening. Send me a shot," Mayor Adams said at a City Hall press conference in April of 2022. "New Yorkers, you see that? Send me a photo and I will be at that station."
Adams noted that in his first few months as mayor, some police officers had approached him to complain about other cops not doing their jobs, and that the pictures from the public would be used to make changes.
"We are going to start taking very aggressive actions to make sure police are patrolling our subway system and not patrolling their iPhone," Adams said. "And so, you are going to see a visible difference in policing in the next couple of weeks to get those officers who are not doing their job to join those officers who are doing their job."
Despite the mayor’s vows of "aggressive" action, it doesn’t appear that much has changed. But it wasn't because the public didn't send any photos to the mayor.
Three years after Adams's request, we finally know what he got in response: at least 30 photos of NYPD officers gazing down at their smartphones at subway stations across four boroughs, plus accompanying notes from eagle-eyed straphangers.
Subscribe to read the full story
Become a paid subscriber to Hell Gate to access all of our posts.
Subscribe