Joe Biden has said “the answer is not to defund the police” and emphasized community policing efforts as he met in New York with the new mayor, Eric Adams, to discuss the uptick in gun violence during the pandemic.
The president added of his preferred approach to fighting crime: “It’s to give you the tools, the training, the funding to be partners, to be protectors and to know the community.”
In the wake of the failure so far by Congress to pass the police reform legislation that was introduced after the murder of George Floyd, the White House said the president is exploring other avenues to reform, such as executive order.
“When I wrote the first crime bill, I noticed that I don’t hear many communities – no matter what their color, their background – saying, ‘I don’t want more protection in my community,’” Biden said. “I haven’t found one of those yet.”
The president reiterated his previous remarks that funding from the American Rescue Plan should be used to hire more police officers, pay police overtime and employ technology that locates gun shots.
He also focused on gun manufacturers, saying it is “the only industry in America that is exempted from being sued, and I find it to be outrageous”.
He pressed for community intervention programs, saying: “They work. They work.”
Biden and Adams met to discuss collaborative efforts between local, state, and federal officials amid spiking gun crime rates in New York and in other major cities nationwide.
Advocates are angered at new strategies from Biden and Adams that call for increased investment in policing, a move they say will not make communities safer or address pandemic-related crime increases.
In New York, shooting incidents have been increasing: in 2020, there were 1,531 shootings in New York, more than twice the number in 2019. In 2021, 1,562 shootings were recorded, a roughly 2% increase from the previous year and the highest number recorded since 2003.
Biden’s visit follows the recent funerals for two New York police department (NYPD) officers, Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera, who were both killed last month while responding to a domestic violence call.
Gun crimes have also escalated in other major cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles, which both reported an increase in homicides involving firearms.
Ahead of Biden’s visit, Adams told WCBS 880 he would ask the president to “have a 9/11 response to the terror of violence that’s playing out on American cities throughout this entire country.”
Adams, who published his own strategy to address gun crime in New York last week, has called for the use of facial recognition technology to identify people carrying weapons, for more spot checks in public transit stations and for more NYPD patrol officers.
“That’s the omnipresence that we need,” he said, lauding increased police presence on the city’s subway.
The Biden administration has made similarly hawkish statements on crime. The White House previously called for cities to use stimulus money to “put more cops on the beat” and has repeatedly stated that Biden does not support defunding the police.
Shortly before leaving for his New York visit, Biden also instructed every US attorney’s office to prioritize prosecution of gun trafficking offenses and increase resources for strategies to curb violent crimes.
Activists are wary about increased investments in policing and carceral solutions from the Biden administration.
“You can’t just say you’ll invest in community violence intervention, and in the same breath add even more money to ineffective and dangerous policing tactics,” said Chicago youth activist Trevon Bosley in a statement with the anti-gun violence non-profit March for Our Lives.
“We can’t afford to take one step forward and two steps backward.”
