NEWYORK: New York city Mayor Eric Adams said that there were no known threats of terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violence against the LGBTQ + communities at Pride events and NYPD have been monitoring.
Giving interview on WBAI 99.5 FM’S annual LGBTQ +pride special, Mayor Adams said that people often critique some of the actions of the police department, but one thing we know for sure, no one does it better on how to secure groups in the city. “We are on heightened alert. This is an important month,” he said.
“As it’s Pride Month, many events are taking place. We have been sitting down doing several briefings with our intelligence division, as well as the chief of the department, Chief Maddrey, and the other executive team. We are going to be monitoring all of these events.”
“We’re monitoring social media. We’re using all of our intelligence, gathering information with our partners across the globe. We’re extremely sensitive about this. We do not take anything for granted. If a threat is made of this magnitude, we make sure that we are on heightened alert. You’re going to see that, not only visible, the visible presence of the uniformed officer but there’s a lot of things that happen that you don’t see to ensure that we are going to secure the safety of the members of the community as they celebrate Pride. They’re going to do it in a safe way.”
To a question about anti-gay legislation across the country, Mayor said that this energy of hate that we’re seeing across our country.
“Really, when it comes down to members of LGBTQ+ community, you’ve seen it across the globe.”
“Here in New York, where you have one of the largest members of the LGBTQ+ communities, we wanted and always will send a strong message, not only in substance but in symbolism when we just say gay.”
A movement, and advertisement campaign we did in Florida when the Florida governor attempted to use this anti-gay voice there, we were very strong here, and we’re going to continue to do that. We have a long, rich history, and part of what we must do, as I stated, it has to be symbolism and substitutes. That is our primary focus.
To a question about health care budget including HIV prevention programs, Mayor Adams said that we have been devastated by what the national government has done.
“When you look at [over 190,000] migrants and asylum seekers, over $4 billion that was taken out of our budget, the resources of the city, and added to that, we had billions of dollars of sunsetting programs that the former administration put in place, permanent programs with temporary dollars. Those dollars had a fiscal cliff that ended in 2024.”
“We had to search high and low of managing and closing the budget. When we looked at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, some of these cuts that they wanted to do, and we’re still in negotiation, around HIV services, had nothing to do with the delivery of services. We need to be clear on that. It had nothing to do with the delivery of services. It had to do with some of the organizations that were getting the word out on HIV prevention. We’re still in negotiation. We still want to see if we can find other dollars. I cannot tell you the challenge we are having by having 190,000 migrants and asylum seekers that are here that can’t work, want to work.”
“I say to my Council colleagues and my other lawmakers, they can’t merely say that we should not be cutting anywhere because we’ve got to cut from somewhere. They should be joining me and going to Washington, D.C., and saying, “This is not right. New York should not have to be picking up the course of a national problem. It’s unfair.” Far too many have not done that. I know if you were a councilman right now, the way you fought for immigration before, you would be in Washington, D.C., saying, “This is not right to treat not only the city but those migrants and the silent speakers that are going through this.”
