arrow Eric Adams Gwynne Hogan / Gothamist
Outside City Hall on a recent afternoon, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams stood in a pinstripe suit and tie beside Abner Louima, who’d been badly beaten and sexually assaulted by NYPD officers in 1997. Louima spent two months in the hospital after the attack. His beating set off a wave of protests against police brutality.
“This incident happened over 20 years ago. The average young person now, some were not born,” Adams said. “Police reform is not a 2021 issue. This has been a fight that we’ve been having for a long time.”
In recent weeks, Adams has tried to craft a message that draws in younger voters, recalling his activism against police brutality over many years. But for younger New Yorkers, some of whom were galvanized by the murder of George Floyd last summer and who are pushing for more radical change, that message has mostly fallen flat.
arrow Mourners at vigil in Brownsville for the deaths of a mother and two daughters slain last week. View all 6
Cathleen Freemantle was sobbing openly as she listened to speakers at a vigil in Brownsville outside the Van Dyke Houses, describing the horrific triple homicide that took place earlier in the week.
She did not know Joseph McCrimon, 46, the man who gunned down his girlfriend Rasheeda Barzey and her two older daughters, sparing the life of the child Barzey and McCrimon had together, a little girl who was celebrating her ninth birthday that day. The domestic violence incident comes amid an increase in gun violence across the city.