NYC’s cop mayor demands only the finest iPhones for filming police brutality

Eric Adams is just a few months into his job as mayor of New York City, and already he’s distinguished himself as one of the absolute weirdest dudes to ever hold office in the Big Apple — a sincere achievement considering the last guy “accidentally” killed a groundhog, and the guy before that has essentially gone completely nuts before our very eyes.

Adams thinks his city radiates “special energy” because of all the crystals in the ground there, and that humans are quantum beings with multiple selves existing simultaneously, and that his community will rebound from the COVID pandemic based largely on his personal “swagger.” He also — as he made clear Wednesday morning — believes that filming police officers in the process of violating a suspect’s civil rights should only be done by those able to afford the most up to date and advanced smartphone technology available.

Speaking Wednesday morning as part of a New York Police Department rollout of “Neighborhood Safety Teams” across the city — essentially a rebranded version of the previously disbanded “anti-crime units” responsible for a “disproportionate” number of shootings — Adams insisted “there is a proper way to document” law enforcement officials, and that “proper” way is to basically leave them alone.

“If your iPhone can’t catch that picture with you being at a safe distance, then you need to upgrade your iPhone,” Adams declared. “Stop being on top of my police officers while they’re carrying out their jobs.”

“That is not acceptable and it won’t be tolerated,” he added, letting the implied threat of retribution against bystanders with insufficient smartphones hang, without further clarification. Because, if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s that making it harder and more intimidating to film police officers always ends up being better for the public, right?

Adams’s reflexive defense of all things policing is hardly a surprise, given his long history as a cop, and the fact that he’s essentially dedicated his political capital to giving the NYPD carte blanche as part of a broader, more restrictive “law and order” initiative. This is, after all, a man who once recorded a five-minute how-to video for parents to narc on their own children. Perhaps the sequel will include a mandate to those parents to pony up for the latest iPhone, too.