Eric Adams, a former police officer elected mayor of New York

He had relied on his experience as a police captain and a black man who suffered police brutality in his youth to campaign on safety. He had championed the middle and popular classes and the fight against racial discrimination. Democrat Eric Adams was elected mayor of New York on Tuesday, November 2, crushing his Republican rival, Curtis Sliwa, winning 67% of the votes cast, according to preliminary results from the city’s election office.

He thus becomes the second black mayor in the history of New York, after being the first black elected to the head of Brooklyn in 2014. Aged 61, he will succeed another Democrat, Bill de Blasio, in January, in a city classified on the left but where economic and social inequalities are extremely marked. “We are so divided now that we no longer see the beauty of our diversity, said the new city councilor, all smiles, white shirt and thumbs up in front of his supporters gathered in a hotel in Brooklyn. Today, we are wearing one and the same jersey, that of New York. “

Criminality

This victory is in fact a consecration for Mr. Adams, raised by disadvantaged parents in Brooklyn and Queens where he experienced delinquency and violent police arrests before becoming a police captain and creating a union to fight against racism, 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, in 1995.

“We’re not just going to talk about security, we’re going to have security”, he promised in front of his supporters, Tuesday evening. Given the increase in crime in New York in 2020, the former police officer did not just promise additional resources for law enforcement. He also pledged to continue reforming the country’s largest police force (NYPD, 36,000 employees).

In a city that has paid a heavy price for the pandemic (34,000 dead), Mr. Adams will also have to manage the return to normalcy in schools, offices and businesses, and fight against glaring social inequalities and evil- lodging. In order to respond to this latest challenge, the elected official announced during his campaign that he would endeavor to put more low-income residents in contact with the municipal services to which they are entitled but which they do not use.