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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC. Now, as usual, on Wednesdays, our lead Eric Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, joins us with excerpts from an analysis of the mayor's Tuesday news conference. Hey, Liz, welcome back to the show.

Elizabeth Kim: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: I want to start with Win Rozario. You know that I've been asking you off the air for weeks, "Did the mayor talk about Win Rozario this week?" This week, he finally did, and listeners, for those of you who don't know this tragic story-- 19-year-old killed by police in his own home while in mental distress. The mayor responded to several questions about Rozario's death yesterday.

We'll start with a clip where he's responding to a question about the action the city is taking, if any, against the officers responsible. We'll get into why that's even a question. Here's the mayor.

Mayor Eric Adams: There's been many conversations across the country, of should police respond, or shouldn't they respond, during the time a person is dealing with a mental health crisis. It's not a perfect science, and when the police respond, in this particular case, it was not one of those cases that normally will have the mental health professional respond to, but you have to get it right and try to get it right all the time, and it's just not that easy to do.

It's an investigation, the attorney general will make a determination, and then the other part of the processes will move forward.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, I thought that was a really an interesting answer from the mayor this week. Of course, from time to time, there are going to be these cases where somebody dies at the hands of the police, and was it a justified shooting? Were they really acting in necessary self-defense, or to protect the life of somebody else? I think those questions have yet to be answered in this case. The mayor seemed to leave open the possibility that the officers were guilty of wrongdoing.

Elizabeth Kim: That's right, Brian. There's another moment in the press conference where he brings up the 1984 case of Eleanor Bumpurs. You might remember that case, as well as many listeners. That was a woman in her 60s. She lived in a public housing complex in the Bronx, and there's some similarities. She was also killed by police officers after, in her case, grabbing a kitchen knife. Also a woman with a history of mental illness, and in that moment, it spurred a huge reckoning.

There were a lot of questions about, how do police handle these cases of emotionally disturbed people. They're known as EDPs in police jargon. There were also questions about the role that race played into the use of force. Adams talked about that yesterday, and he spoke that, for him, as an officer, it personally affected him, and he was critical at that time. I would say that the issue with what the mayor said yesterday is, I found that there is still something lacking.

Yes, the mayor does speak with great authority on issues of policing, and public safety, because he was a former police officer, and it's good when he acknowledges that there are shortcomings in the police response. I think what the problem is, is that when he acknowledges that this has been a source of debate for decades now, I think at this point, New Yorkers really want to hear a mayor come up with a policy prescription. It's not really clear what that is, in this moment.

I would point out, my colleague, Caroline Lewis, did a great analysis in January, of a pilot program that has been talked about for a long time in New York City. It's about having police officers be accompanied by social service workers or EMTs when they are handling mental health calls. Now, the problem with that is, it's just still a pilot program, and it covers, basically, just a fraction of all the calls.

Maybe, of all the calls that they receive, they respond to about a quarter, and they're only operating in 25 out of 77 police precincts. Now, you heard, the mayor's answer say this was not a call that would have required a medical professional.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's exactly what I was going to follow up on, because here's the case, and for people who don't know the case, the call was about Win Rozario being in mental distress, and when the police were there, from all the reporting, Win Rozario had a pair of scissors, his mother was trying to restrain him, it was chaotic. The mother was saying, "Don't shoot, don't shoot." For whatever reason, the police felt that there was enough of a threat that they had to shoot.

I guess that'll all be sorted out in the investigation, but the basic fact was, there was the person who was in mental distress, and that was known from the beginning of the call, but the mayor said that this wasn't a case that, even if they had the staff, would normally include a mental health professional, not just uniform police officers with guns, who can be triggering in the emotional sense. Why not?

Elizabeth Kim: Exactly, Brian. If this is not the kind of call that would warrant a medical professional to be on the scene, then it really makes you wonder, well, what kind of calls would warrant that? We have this pilot program, it's not nearly addressing enough of the calls that the police and 911 receive. The question is, moving forward, what do we want to do? Does the mayor want to undertake a reevaluation of this pilot program?

There's some criticism that he hasn't expanded enough funding for this program. I think it's a fair question for this mayor, who is-- he does put himself forward as this expert on public safety, to step up in this moment, and tell us. It doesn't have to be on the spot, but I think that it would be good, in that moment, to hear that we're going to embark on an analysis. We are going to commission a group.

I know a lot of the public gets very tired when they hear about commissions, but something in this moment-- Again, the mayor himself, he brought up the Eleanor Bumpurs case that was 1984. Then there was another case in 2016, Deborah Danner. Both of these moments, there was a huge reckoning and debate of, "What should the city do," but nothing has come of it. I think that it's interesting that this case has not gotten quite the amount of attention that the Bumpurs case and the Danner case did, even though there are similarities.

Both Danner and Bumpurs were Black women. There have been some questions about whether the fact that because Rozario was Bangladeshi, and that community is undercovered and receives less political attention, whether that's why there hasn't been this large outpouring of outrage that there were in those cases, although the family is very much in grief, and very, very angry at the mayor.

Brian Lehrer: They're calling for the cops to be prosecuted.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Changing years-- Another topic from the mayor's news conference yesterday. Winnie Greco, people may or may not know the name, going back to work for the mayor this week. A quick reminder, she was a top Aide to Adams and his director of Asian American Affairs, I think on sick leave, technically, but there were controversies surrounding her. Explain the Winnie Greco case.

Elizabeth Kim: What happened with Winnie Greco, as you said, she is a top advisor to Mayor Adams. Even more than that, she's someone who was very close to Mayor Adams, beginning with when he was borough president in Brooklyn. She's very critical in terms of his outreach to the Chinese community. She was a prolific fundraiser for the mayor. What happened, what led to her leave, was the fact that there was an FBI raid on her two homes in the Bronx.

Following that FBI raid, it was reported that she had a medical episode, and then had to take a sick leave. We haven't heard from Winnie Greco since that time. It's unclear what the FBI raid was about, although I think the assumption is, because there is an ongoing investigation into the mayor's fundraising, that it's somehow tied to that. We do know it's a federal investigation. Her status had been unknown until recently, when THE CITY reported that she was back at work, the outlet THE CITY.

The outlet also reported that she received raises. The mayor was asked about both her return, and also why she got a salary bump. The mayor's explanation regarding her salary bump was that there were people that he had appointed that had received lower pay, that were lower on the scale, and this was about bringing them up, this was about equity, and that his office had been doing an analysis of everyone and trying to bring everybody up to scale. Take that as you will.

Brian Lehrer: These various fundraising scandals that are swirling around the mayor's campaign are sure to come up next year. Here he is, getting ready to run for re-election already. Sometimes it seems like he's the brand new mayor, but next year, 2025, is four years. Let me play another clip from the news conference yesterday, because this did come up in the context of the potential runs against him in a Democratic primary that we're seeing from State Senator Zellnor Myrie, who's started an exploratory committee, as has the former comptroller, Scott Stringer.

Here's a clip of Adams talking in response to a question about his likely challengers.

Mayor Eric Adams: Listen, we're a year and some change away. I think as imperative as I did during my campaign, I focused on what I was going to bring to office. It was very clear. Bring down crime, revitalize our economy, invest in our young people. I laid out a plan. If you go look at what Eric ran on, and you looked at what we have accomplished, it is very impressive.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, that's his take on himself, and anybody would probably say something like that about themselves as they're getting ready to run for re-election. Next year, Liz, I'm sure we will be focusing a lot, other media will be focusing a lot on to what degree he has achieved those promises. He's very clear about what he thinks he should be measured on, and maybe that's a good thing, bring down crime, revitalize our economy, invest in our young people, his words.

Well, is he successful at it, or not? Those are really the substantive questions for next year, right?

Elizabeth Kim: Exactly. I would say the problem with that is that the polls don't agree with the mayor's assessment, and in the end, it's what voters think. The mayor often says that it's not enough for crime to go down, New Yorkers have to feel safe. Well, the same goes for his performance. He can point to crime going down, and it is, although we are not yet as down as we were before the pandemic, and I think that's a very important benchmark by which he should be measured.

Are we making sufficient strides that we're going to get there before the primary? Is that a fair benchmark, too? We can ask that question, too. He can say that jobs are up. That's true as well. Although the data has shown that the recovery has been uneven. The middle-class workers and low-wage workers, they've suffered from a lot of stagnant wage growth. They've also suffered from inflation. Low-wage jobs, like the retail industry, have not entirely come back, and that's hurt a lot of Black and Latino New Yorkers.

Again, like you said, the investigations, that's a cloud over his mayoralty, and that raises questions about his ethics. The budget cuts have been broadly unpopular with voters. The mayor has tried to undo some of them. He hasn't undone some of them. I think with the budget cuts, a lot of the political damage is already done. When I speak to voters, one of the things they often bring up is the fact that libraries are closed on Sundays. That's something that they blame the mayor for.

Brian Lehrer: A lot more to come, obviously, as time goes on, on assessing Mayor Eric Adams' first term. More to come next Wednesday, from Liz Kim, as she comes on this show every Wednesday, after the mayor's Tuesday news conferences. It's one of the ways that we cover, in our discussion context, what's going on in the city, issue-wise, politics-wise. We play these clips of the mayor.

Liz comes on after covering them in the room, with her analysis, and to take your calls, usually. Liz, thanks for today. Talk to you next week, of course.

Elizabeth: Thanks so much, Brian.

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