New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ own aide came face-to-face with the city’s crime epidemic when a pair of armed men robbed him.
The pair of robbers confronted aide Chris Baugh, 33, around 10:30 am Tuesday morning in Brooklyn as “he was heading to pick up his city car,” according to the New York Daily News.
He reportedly told them to “get out of my way.” They chose to instead shove him to the ground.
Baugh then begged them to reconsider and pointed out that he works for the city mayor.
“You don’t want to do this. I work for the mayor,” he told them, according to the Daily News’ police sources.
One of the robbers responded by lifting his shirt and showing off his gun.
The robbers proceeded to strip Baugh of his cell phone and wallet and then fled down the street.
As of Wednesday morning, the suspects remained on the loose.
Meanwhile, Adams had responded by predictably blaming the robbery on guns, as if the two robbers wouldn’t have accosted Baugh if they hadn’t had a firearm on them.
“Today’s incident only further highlights the urgency to get dangerous guns and dangerous people off our streets as quickly as possible. New York City employees are city residents, and we will do everything in our power to keep all New Yorkers safe,” Adams’ spokesperson, Fabien Levy, said.
It’s the same sort of rhetoric that was espoused after after a 20-year-old mother pushing a baby stroller was executed in NYC’s Upper East Side late last month.
“Earlier today the police commissioner and I were with the attorney general talking about ghost guns. Later in the day, we were with U.S. Sen. [Kirsten] Gillibrand talking about gun trafficking. This entire day we have been addressing the problem of the proliferation of guns on our streets, how readily accessible they are, and how there is just no fear in using these guns on innocent New Yorkers. And this is the result of that. These are real stories, real lives,” Adams said at the time.
“When a mother’s pushing a baby carriage down the block … and is shot in point-blank range, this shows just how this national problem is impacting families. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the Upper East Side or East New York Brooklyn, the oversaturation of guns in dangerous people that repeatedly leave our justice system to continue actions like this, it is what’s making the New York City Police Department and other law enforcement agencies here in New York and across the country difficult to fight this issue.”
He later echoed this rhetoric on Twitter.
Mother, 20, pushing baby stroller executed in upper Manhattan in front of kids, mayor blames gun laws https://t.co/iLrt5ByGgF
— American Wire News (@americanwire_) June 30, 2022
To Adams’ credit, while he’s been publicly complaining about guns, behind the scenes he’s been making some moves to tackle the city’s crime epidemic. Most notably, back in January, he revived the city’s plainclothes police unit.
“The unit was dismantled in 2020, after its tactics being (sic) declared unconstitutional. Residents and civil rights advocates had complained for years that the unit used excessive force and that it targeted people of color who it found ‘suspicious,'” according to NPR.
But despite complaints about the group’s alleged bias, its actions helped reduce crime. Conversely, within days of the group being disbanded in 2020, crime spiked, as reported at the time by Heritage Foundation legal fellow GianCarlo Canaparo.
“The anti-crime unit was undercover, plainclothes cops assigned to each precinct and city housing. They went after illegal guns, local crime sprees, and focused on burglaries. Incidentally, we’ve seen that burglaries are up 45 percent in New York this year so far,” she said during an appearance on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
“The reason that they were disbanded, I think, is because they were involved in more police shootings than other departments, by the nature of what they did, focusing on violent crimes and guns. But what you’ve seen, then, is that the New York Police Department is now deprived of, basically, its first responders to the most violent types of crimes.”
Adams, to his credit, revived the group.
“The plainclothes anti-gun unit is going to zero in on guns and gangs. We’re going to use precision policing to identify the gang members, the crews. We’re going to target them,” he said in January.
The mayor has also slammed the Democrat prosecutors who keep releasing criminals back out onto the streets.
“The courts have to prosecute. Judges have to make sure they stay in. Everyone has to do their part. If not, they go out and come back. And you know what’s interesting? You do a profile, the picture that’s emerging after the shooting, after the arrest, after being let go, you know what they do? They go do another shooting,” he said at a press conference early last month.
“People no longer believe that you can’t do a shooting in the city. You do a profile on all of these individuals here. You’re going to see prior gun possession, prior shootings, just coming out. No one takes criminal justice seriously anymore. These bad guys no longer take them seriously. They believe our criminal justice system is a laughingstock of our entire country.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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