Title: Reporters Ask the Mayor More Resignations, More Investigations, and EMS Response Times [music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, as usual on Wednesdays, our lead, Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, with excerpts from analysis of and to take your calls about the mayor's weekly Tuesday news conference. Hey, Liz. Happy Wednesday.

Elizabeth Kim: Happy Wednesday, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: I guess we have to start with the big news that broke after the news conference yesterday, which is that Schools Chancellor David Banks, has joined the ever-growing list of resignations within the Adams administration. Why did he say he's stepping down?

Elizabeth Kim: The schools chancellor said that this was a retirement. He is 62 years old, but it was really hard not to view this resignation in the context of whats happening around both the schools chancellor and the mayor. As we know, about three weeks ago, the chancellor had his phone seized by federal agents as part of what appears to be a sweeping investigation. He was not the only one who had his phone seized. His partner, Sheena Wright, who is the first deputy mayor, also had her phone seized. His brother, who is the deputy mayor for public safety, Phil Banks, also had his phone seized.

All of this is happening not long in the same month, essentially, that all of this has been happening around these intensifying investigations. It also comes not long after the health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, announced that he was going to step down sometime early next year. He made that announcement on Monday. What I would say in terms of all of these departures, we've also had the police commissioner resign. We've had the mayor's chief counsel abruptly resign over a weekend without leaving any notice.

I would say though, the departure of the schools' chancellor is in some ways a bigger deal. It matches that of the police commissioner because in terms of public profile, I think it's right under police commissioner. The confidence in the school system is what encourages new families to move to the city. It is also what keeps families from moving to the suburbs. I think this is a very big shakeup for Mayor Adams.

Brian Lehrer: Unlike the police commissioner, David Banks is not stepping down immediately. He announced what you say is a retirement, according to him, and he's going to stay on until the end of the year. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing where he's going to be indicted in two days, so he's incapable of serving or there's so much pressure on him because of whatever the investigation is about, which we barely know what the investigation is even about, that he doesn't feel he can continue to really do his job next week.

Maybe it's even more like the health commissioner, who I don't think is under the cloud of any investigation, where, "Hey, look, this administration is almost over. Next year will be the last year. It is obviously a troubled time for it. It is just time for me to walk away and not be there till the bitter end." What do you think?

Elizabeth Kim: That's right, Brian. That's an excellent point. To be fair, this was not a complete surprise to people who have been closely following City Hall and also the Department of Education. There have been rumors for some time now that the chancellor wanted to step down, and it was a question of when was he going to do it. I think in terms of that, this followed so quickly after the health commissioner did it, and also that it was this late-breaking news on a Wednesday that seemed to catch the education community, for sure, off guard. It was in many ways the way that Banks delivered the news that was somewhat interesting.

I should say also that the mayor held his press conference right before this announcement was made. The mayor was facing lots of questions about resignations and how was he going to replace these key roles. It was also interesting that yesterday, the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright, who, like we said, is the partner for the schools chancellor, was not at the press conference. The mayor was asked why she was not at the press conference. She normally sits right next to the mayor at those press conferences, and he didn't address it.

Brian Lehrer: She's not stepping down.

Elizabeth Kim: She is not stepping down.

Brian Lehrer: Even though I think we've established in past weeks that she's more the target of the investigation than David Banks, her partner, who she lives with is. No?

Elizabeth Kim: I don't know that anyone can say with certainty exactly who. I've heard that that somehow he was collateral because he works closely. He lives, obviously, with the first deputy mayor, but I don't know that any of us can say with 100% certainty who is the subject of this investigation and what exactly are investigators looking for.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. One of his brothers is certainly being closely scrutinized, so there are various ties to David Banks. One replacement, or at least temporary replacement, the one for Police Commissioner Tom Donlon is now also under investigation. You want to set up this next clip for us? What do we know so far about this investigation before we play the clip of the mayor responding to it?

Elizabeth Kim: Sure. Now, this was a crazy plot twist. In the last month, we've seen subpoenas, we've seen search warrants, but then over the weekend, the interim police commissioner, he's the person that the mayor appointed after Edward Caban resigned. He put out a statement on Saturday acknowledging that federal agents had searched his homes and that they had taken out documents. Out of the blue, now we had Edward Caban left under the cloud of these investigations because his phones were seized, and yet we now have the new interim police commissioner just one week into the job, and federal agents are searching his home.

Brian Lehrer: The mayor was asked about that.

Mayor Adams: Many New Yorkers have communicated to me about the actions that took place last week of which is a private matter that he was dealing with. It had nothing to do with his role as a police commissioner. I think that we're going to continue to do what I say over and over again. My job is to deliver up for the people of this city and to stay focused. Those New Yorkers who communicated with me and stated that they have questions for what happened with our commissioner for documents that appeared for 20 years ago, I think the US Attorney's Office and the FBI has to answer that. I don't have the answer to those questions.

Brian Lehrer: Were these documents from 20 years ago that the FBI was looking for from Tom Donlon, and wasn't Donlon supposed to be Mr. Clean coming out of the federal law enforcement agencies to be the uncontroversial one after Caban stepped down?

Elizabeth Kim: That's correct. In many ways it was seen as he was going to restore public trust in the NYPD, and especially his tie to federal law enforcement was going to help him do that. We should say we don't know. He hasn't been accused of anything, much like the mayor, and all of these other [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: I was just going to say almost everybody we're talking about here, none of them have been accused of anything, charged with anything.

Elizabeth Kim: They have not. You heard the mayor in his remarks, and he has said this from time to time. I think he's trying to be careful about it too, but you hear him say that New Yorkers were concerned about this and he acknowledged that New Yorkers had reached out to him to ask about this. He basically said, "You need to direct your questions to the Southern District, which is conducting this investigation." I think that it's an acknowledgment that there are a lot of growing questions about what is this all about. It's become very head-scratching to many people, not just people who are reading about it, but even people within the political world.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you think we've exhausted all the developments just from the last few days in investigations involving Mayor Adams and the people who work for Mayor Adams, no. To the mayor himself, Liz, before we play this next clip that's relevant to the question I'm going to ask you, there are new questions surrounding he himself. There was already a question about whether he was acting as an agent for the government of Turkey in some way, but now other countries are on that list?

Elizabeth Kim: That's right. There was a story in the New York Times in which they cited sources as telling them that the mayor's fundraising, which has been reported widely to focus on illegal donations from Turkish government officials, now the sources are telling The Times that the investigation is also looking at the mayor's potential ties to five other countries, and those are Israel, China, Qatar, South Korea, and Uzbekistan.

Brian Lehrer: Here's an exchange that starts with a reporter's question.

Elizabeth Kim: We know you've traveled to Israel, China, and Turkey, but just looking to see if you've traveled to Uzbekistan, Qatar, and South Korea as well.

Mayor Adams: You said you're looking into that?

Elizabeth Kim: I am.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, talk about that.

Elizabeth Kim: [chuckles] That was an interesting curt exchange. The mayor says that as mayor, he has been to two of those countries. He's been to Israel and Qatar. He has acknowledged that he has also traveled to China and Turkey. He said he has never been to Uzbekistan, but he did say that he has been to South Korea. Those trips preceded his role as mayor. He was very much pressed on this. Because of that New York Times story, there is going to be abundant curiosity from the press corps on these travels.

It's been no secret that as Brooklyn borough president, Adams liked to travel. He traveled the globe. There have been efforts to get more information about those trips. Who did he speak with? Who did he meet with? There's also been a lot of frustration on behalf of reporters who've tried to make freedom of information requests for his schedules and for his correspondence around these countries. The mayor has been very slow to respond to these freedom of information requests. They're often delayed, and in some cases, they're stalled or denied.

Brian Lehrer: He was asked to share his travel schedules and relevant communications regarding those trips, again, to Israel, China, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Qatar, and South Korea. Such a diverse array of countries. It's hard for me to imagine that the feds think that he may be acting secretly as an agent for multiple of those countries. Is that really the question that's in play here? He was asked to share his travel schedules and relevant communications regarding those trips.

Elizabeth Kim: He was. His response to that was, "I have only visited two of those countries, Israel and Qatar, as mayor," meaning that he was drawing a line in terms of what his office could provide in terms of freedom of information requests. Like I said, those requests have been made by reporters. They have just not been answered. The mayor's response to that is they have a backlog and that these-- it just takes time to fulfill these kinds of extensive requests for emails and his travel itinerary. I think the press is a little bit more skeptical about that and you would understand why. They think that his office is basically refusing to hand over this information.

I don't know what to make of those other countries because of the trips. Those trips were made prior to him becoming mayor. We don't know exactly what the timeline of those trips were. Were they done in advance of his campaign for mayor? Were they done during his campaign for mayor? There are a lot of unanswered questions, and the mayor is not willing to answer those questions.

Brian Lehrer: There were numerous questions for Adams surrounding his reaction to the multiple investigations into him and people around him. In particular, reporters asked the mayor about the connection he made a few weeks ago between himself and Job, the biblical figure job, while speaking to congregations in East New York. Here's that.

Mayor Adams: If you sit still long enough, you'll see that there's a lesson God had for you. I have my Job moments, and those Job moments are never going to go away. I've learned to turn on my GPS, my God positioning satellite. Sometimes you got to let go and let God. Reporters said to me this morning, "Oh, you feel you're being persecuted?" I said, "No, I'm just in my Job moment."

Brian Lehrer: Now, did the mayor go to that church with a piano player in tow to score his answer? No, I guess it was the piano player for the church who decided to break out in a little background music at that moment, huh?

Elizabeth Kim: Right. That's not unusual in church, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the mayor referring to it one more time.

Mayor Adams: As you talked about the Job moment, things that come up in life, they always come up. There's always something happening in life. Can you stay focused on your mission?

Brian Lehrer: That was the mayor yesterday responding to questions about that. I want to ask you-- and listeners, you can you can call in and text us with questions, comments, any reactions, stories, if you're connected to anything we're talking about with respect to topics from Mayor Adams's weekly Tuesday news conference yesterday with our City Hall reporter, Elizabeth Kim. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

There was, of course, the bodycam footage from the police shooting in the subways that was released over the weekend. So many of these things happen over the weekend, when people supposedly aren't paying much attention or as much attention to the news cycle. The bodycam footage came out Friday night. Last week, the mayor--

Elizabeth Kim: Which is intentional, Brian. It's known as-

Brian Lehrer: You're [crosstalk].

Elizabeth Kim: -Friday night news dump. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: That's right, other things like this. With respect to this, I watched the news conference yesterday, and one of the things that was striking to me that we talked about on yesterday's show with another guest that seemed to be unresolved, was the way the reporter asked a question about the moment that the police fired at the suspect on the subway platform, injuring him and three other people, including one of the police officers who was there, four people injured by the shooting. The reporter's question asked about perceptions of the video that the person who they were shooting, Derrell Mickles, was standing still.

The mayor answered it in terms of he was lunging or somehow approaching the police officers with a knife as if he was about to knife them. It's such a crucial fact in terms of deciding whether a police shooting was justified. Did you notice that disconnect in the way the question was asked and the way the question was answered or if there's any resolution, consensus as to what was actually happening at the moment that the shooting took place?

Elizabeth Kim: I haven't seen the video, Brian. It's 17 minutes. I don't think that it has conclusively answered the question of, at least in the minds of critics, was this a justified police shooting? What I remember about the reporter's question yesterday was she also asked the mayor to respond to the families, "Will you meet with the families?" She noted that, "I know you have met with the injured police officer, but will you reach out to the families?" The mayor acknowledged that he had talked to one of the families, I believe, on the day of or shortly after the shooting, but he did not make it clear that he had done any subsequent outreach to those families.

Again, this was a situation in which there were two bystanders who were injured. There was one man who was shot in the head, and he is critically injured. I don't know the exact status of his condition. Then there was another woman who police initially said a bullet grazed her leg, but she has since come out and said that the bullet is still lodged in her leg and she cannot walk. I think the shooting continues to raise questions in the minds of people who have been critical of Mayor Adams about aggressive policing, especially aggressive of policing in the subways. I don't think that they felt that the mayor had adequately addressed this issue.

He has basically said that the response was appropriate but then has given very little, I think, attention or weight to the fact of, this was not a shooting in which the police went after someone they felt was threatening them with a knife. That person himself was also hospitalized and is critically injured. He was shot in the stomach. This is an incident in which the bullets fired injured bystanders. We've talked about this. The mayor isn't talking a lot about those casualties and whether what the police officers did in this moment, the way they handled it, justified having two other people who were just going about their day and trying to ride the subway get hurt in this way.

Brian Lehrer: One of the other officers, right? The other--

Elizabeth Kim: And one of the other officers. That's correct.

Brian Lehrer: The condition of that officer, any information on that?

Elizabeth Kim: He was shot-- the bullet had gone through his armpit is what I remember the police saying, but I think he is okay.

Brian Lehrer: I wonder, and I haven't seen any reporting on this, maybe you don't have anything, but whether the rank and file of the NYPD is angry about this shooting. One of their own got injured, and there's so much discussion about whether it was necessary or not, whether they used de-escalation tactics first to enough of a degree. The mayor seemed to brush off that suggestion yesterday at the news conference. Here is a situation that has so many uncertainties to it, and it wound up with one of their own getting shot by one of their own. I'm just curious if there's any indication that people in the rank and file at the NYPD are saying, "What were you doing in this situation? How did it come to that?"

Elizabeth Kim: I think in the minds of many people, it's mind-boggling that the way the mayor has framed this is that this was the appropriate response, that he would not say this was a less-than-perfect response. There's one thing to be said that he's defending that the officers-- he does talk a lot about himself being a transit officer and that in these situations, you have to make snap decisions. He talked about that at the press conference. He basically said that people who are watching the video, you can slow it down at certain points and stop it and pause it, but that's not the way this happens in real life, that these officers are forced to make these decisions within seconds.

I think that that's a fair point, but the fact that he is not willing to say, "We're going to review this, and we're going to learn from this incident. We're going to come up with maybe a way to improve." In a situation like this, what is the best thing to do? He did acknowledge that the Tasers didn't work. If the Tasers didn't work, that's not the first time that Tasers have not worked. How should the police handle that going forward?

Brian Lehrer: The mayor also leaned on the idea that Mr. Mickles was a dangerous person, 20 previous arrests, even though the police couldn't have known that at the time, and that he was out to do harm. Another thing that was unclear to me from watching at least the New York Times edit of the video, which I watched several times, it was unclear to me whether the mayor's assertion that he was out to do harm is backed up. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. I don't know.

Do we know if he was walking around holding that knife? Knife is legal to own. Was he walking around holding that knife? Was he already flashing the knife like he was going to mug somebody or something like that, or did he only pull the knife in response to the police trying to stop him after he jumped the turnstile? Not that that's okay, but it's different than-- If that's what happened, it raises the question, again, of how much enforcement by the armed NYPD of fair evasion is warranted because maybe none of this needed to happen.

If he did show the knife, if he was walking around with a knife that he intended to do something with and that he was already showing evidence of intending to do something with, then it's a different story, but do we know from the video?

Elizabeth Kim: I don't know that it's conclusive, Brian. What you said, the fact that he was holding the knife, and yes, in the video you can see that he is holding a knife, and police have said that this is-- They began by calling it a fair evasion arrest. I should say, we should note that, but then they backtracked off of that after there was a lot of backlash. They said, "Well, no. He did evade the fair. He did jump the turnstile," but they said that this arrest was about him threatening officers. In the video, the officers repeatedly ask him to drop the knife, but then he refuses to drop the knife.

There's another element that has been introduced into this as well. In recent days, police officials have also tried to link this to the mental health crisis, which that has been something we've been talking about a lot post-pandemic. The mayor himself has talked about this a lot too, especially with regards to what he has called random acts of violence in the subway. His term began with the tragic death of Michelle Go, a woman who was pushed onto the tracks by a man with a history of mental illness.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, with more excerpts from the mayor's news conference yesterday and more discussion. We're going to go on to an issue that's of concern to all New Yorkers, I'm sure, and that is EMS response time. When you call an ambulance, it's apparently taking longer than it used to for them to get to you. We'll hear what the mayor had to say about that when we continue in a minute. If you want to call or text on any of this, 212-433-WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, with excerpts from an analysis of, and to take some of your calls and comments about yesterday's weekly Tuesday news conference. On what I just said in describing the subway incident, Liz, that it's not illegal to carry a knife in New York City, city Councilmember Tiffany Caban was on the show yesterday. She said that she is obviously an opponent of the mayor, a very harsh critic of the mayor's policing policies and advocates free subway and bus fare altogether, but she's also a lawyer, a former public defender, and she said it's legal. It's a legal weapon. It's legal to carry a knife in New York.

A few people are writing in saying carrying knives on the subway system is a criminal offense. He was clearly brandishing. Another person, "Carrying a weapon of any kind in the MTA is not legal." I don't know if you have the definitive answer to that, but there are a couple of different listeners disputing, at least the way I understood, Tiffany Caban's take yesterday.

Elizabeth Kim: I don't know what the final answer is on it, but I'm pretty sure, Brian, that if police officers ask you to drop a knife, you're expected to do that. That's not to justify them shooting him. Clearly, once you enter the station and police officers approach you and they ask you to drop the knife, the expectation is that you follow their orders, but again, there are layers to this. Was he, as some police officers are now suggesting, mentally ill? In an interview that I read about, a top police official was suggesting that if police are asking you to drop a weapon and you're just not dropping it, something has to be wrong. Something is not clicking. That's a question too.

I think another issue that we haven't paid enough, or the press hasn't paid enough attention to, it's not just a question of whether is the policing too aggressive. Its also is the policing racially unjust? Because the data has shown that police stops and fair evasion disproportionately affect Black and brown New Yorkers. Last week, I remember, Brian, a caller raised this issue that had this happened in a predominantly white neighborhood, this happened in a Brooklyn stop that is in Brownsville, had this happen in a predominantly white neighborhood, would the response of the public be different? Would the response of the mayor be different?

Brian Lehrer: Another listener writes, "None of us can step into the shoes of a police officer trying to defend public safety when he feels or she feels it is danger. As a mother of two adult children who ride the subways and live in New York City, fear for their safety in general over crime, but in the subway, even more so because we have not heard very good outcomes from some of the most recent incidents that have taken place, including this one that you were discussing with what happened to the bystanders."

I do want to go on to the EMS issue. Obviously, how fast ambulances can get to you when you're in an emergency is important. A new report on emergency response times in New York City found that EMS workers are hitting records for slow response times. According to the report, 10 years ago, it took EMS 9.6 minutes on average to get to a life-threatening call. The response time is now 12.4 minutes. Here's the mayor addressing a question on this issue yesterday.

Mayor Adams: It's a very complicated series of things, everything from the serious congestion that we have in the city with the so many vehicles, from the far higher vehicles to others, but the goal is to bring down the response time.

Brian Lehrer: Does his response address the breadth of this issue? There are multiple factors that go into response times, to be sure.

Elizabeth Kim: That's right, Brian. The union began their negotiations with the city this summer, that's the union for Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics. Their contract is actually expired. It's been expired for, I think, around two years now. This is a longstanding issue that has to do with pay parity. Emergency medical technicians and paramedics are paid around-- their starting salary is around $39,000 a year. There's a big gap between how they're paid compared to police officers and firefighters. They have long argued for many years that this is unfair.

They have said that the city just fails to appreciate what it is that they do. During COVID, they were really on the front lines in terms of responding to people with medical emergencies during the height of COVID especially. They've also argued that part of this pay disparity has to do with the fact that they are predominantly women. They are also predominantly people of color. They've made this case for many years now.

I think they saw that they would have some hope under Adams because as a candidate, the mayor pledged to make pay parity for EMS workers a priority under his administration, but that hasn't happened. The union for these workers, in fact, endorsed Mayor Adams. I remember that moment. I remember being at that event where they said that they would support this mayor because he would finally give them the justice and the pay they deserved.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. In response to a reporter question about those wage negotiations for EMS workers, he said he puts a lot of faith in Labor Commissioner Renee Campion, who he called the champion, to get these workers pay increases. Here's eight seconds of that.

Mayor Adams: I have a lot of faith in her. She's going to land the plane, and we're going to treat our EMS employees with the level of dignity and respect that they deserve.

Brian Lehrer: The mayor referred very briefly to the multiple factors that go into EMS response time. One of the things that he referred to briefly was they have to get out of the hospital once they deliver somebody to the hospital. This is for a whole other segment eventually. I actually accompanied somebody in an ambulance to a hospital this summer.

One of the things that struck me about that experience, which I never had before, was how much time the ambulance workers had to spend at the hospital before the patient was handed off to hospital staff. There was an article at Newsday the other week, Long Island's newspapers, that described frequent wait times of four hours if you go to an emergency room of one of the hospitals on Long Island. There may be a whole other issue there about hospital staffing, which has also been a key issue in hospital worker negotiations.

They were asking for more staff, more nurses, as well as asking for any pay increase for those who are already on the job. It could be that delays in emergency rooms and maybe understaffing of emergency rooms in comparison to the demand is another whole separate issue that deserves a closer look. I don't suppose you have anything on that, but I just thought it was an experience I had this summer that was worth relating to that reference by the mayor yesterday and that story on Newsday.

Elizabeth Kim: I don't, Brian, but we have talked about how the city recently decided within its public hospital system to reduce the appointment times, the duration of an appointment for a patient from doctors. That had caused some controversy because doctors were not happy about it. They were saying that they would not be able to give the kind of quality of care. The City has said that they're facing unprecedented demand for care from New Yorkers and that they need to figure out some way to get people more appointments. This has been an issue, definitely, on the forefront for the mayor and for New Yorkers around the public health system and how it's doing and how it's responding.

Brian Lehrer: Let me get one caller in here before we run out of time on the topic of the schools chancellor, David Banks, retiring. Michael in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Hi. I'm okay. You have a story as a contractor in the schools?

Michael: Correct. I'm just won--

Brian Lehrer: Whoops, his line just dropped off. Michael, if you can call us back instantly, we'll put you on. He told our screener that he's a contractor who provides some service in the schools, and there's been a problem getting paid this year for the individual or the organization. I've heard at least one other story like this off the air that there have been historically unusual delays in payments for Department of Education contractors. Have you heard anything alleging that before?

Elizabeth Kim: Yes, Brian. That was a big issue with pre-K providers. The City said that there was a backlog, and they were going through the backlog. The City initially said that the problem laid with the fact of the way de Blasio had designed the payment system and that they were going to fix it. Yes, that has been an issue for the city.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We will leave it there for today with our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, who joins us most Wednesdays after the mayor's Tuesday news conferences. Liz, thanks as always.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

 

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