New York City was once the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic and has since gone through a "perfect storm" that drove crime levels up, but the police department is working with the community and fighting back, and the city will return to greatness, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.
"What happened in this city is there weren’t jobs, there weren’t schools, there weren’t houses of worship, you name it," the mayor said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "Things came to the point where everything that anchored society wasn’t there, and people went through such pain and frustration and the crime levels did go up."
The NYPD set a record last week for the last 25 years making the most arrests for guns in a week, said the mayor, adding that he is hearing from clergy, community leaders, and communities of color that people do want the police to be visible and present.
"New York City never gives up," said de Blasio. "No one gave up. We went through hell, and now we are coming back and you see more and more activity on our streets. You see more and more jobs coming back. You see the biggest school system in America coming to life starting on Monday. I’m very convinced we’re going to turn the tide on all these things."
He agreed that there is a problem with systemic racism in his city and nationwide, but "in communities of color in this city, people want the police to be there for them and they want to have a relationship with the police, but they need it to be grounded in respect."
There will always be people who bet against New York City, which has had problems year after year, but it always comes back, said de Blasio.
"(We) came back after 9/11, came back after Hurricane Sandy, came back after the Great Recession ... the greatness of our people is eternal," said the mayor. "We’re going to come back and we will come back strong because we’re actually going to focus on a lot of disparities that this crisis dredged up. Things I’ve been talking about for a long time that we need to address."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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