NYC Mayor-Elect Adams Vows Not to Let BLM 'Burn Down' City Following 'Bloodshed' Threats - Report

Following the killing of Black man George Floyd in police custody in 2020, the city has seen an increase in violent crime, especially amid massive protests for defunding the police. Earlier, Adams pledged to revive the plainclothes police unit to fight crime, prompting threats from the BLM movement.

New York City's Mayor-elect Eric Adams gave an emotional anti-crime speech in Manhattan, echoing his warning to Black Lives Matter leader Hawk Newsome not to mess with the city authorities, the New York Post reported.

"We’re not going to surrender to those who are saying, ‘We’re going to burn down New York.’ Not my city," Adams pledged at a Police Athletic League event at the Harvard Club, per the report.

Former New York Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox, billionaire business magnate John Catsimatidis, actor and former talk show host Tony Danza, and former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton were among the mostly Republican gathering who warmly greeted Adams, who is a retired NYPD captain.

Mayor-elect Eric Adams getting standing ovation as he enters NYC Police Athletic League event at the Harvard Club#nyc #nycpal #nypd #harvardclub @ericadamsfornyc #ericadams pic.twitter.com/7ypFQo0Tnr

— Linda Schmidt (@LSchmidtFox5) December 9, 2021

The pledge came in response to the BLM leader's remarks last month when he said that if Adams follows through on his plans, there will be "riots, fire, and bloodshed," as the movement would "take to the streets again."

In his speech on Thursday, Adams also had a message for the agitators who desecrated property in Middle Village, Queens, following Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal, who shot two rioters in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020.

"We’re not going to have a city where anarchists come from outside our city and go into a community such as Queens and destroy the community for their own selfish needs or desires," the mayor-elect stated.

Commissioner Bratton was hailed by Adams for cutting the city's murder rate and for his "broken windows" police tactics, which targeted quality-of-life concerns such as graffiti in order to make the city safer from violent crime.

"Bill Bratton, your legend has not been completely closed," Adams noted.

The soon-to-be mayor also reportedly joked that it is a good thing he won the Democratic primary, rather than any of the other anti-police and anti-business candidates.

"I burn candles and say prayers and Hail Marys that those other characters were not elected to be mayor right now," he quipped. "People who were talking about disarming police, running out business people from our city."

The joke was an apparent reference to another candidate, Maya Wiley, who reportedly could not answer directly whether she would take NYPD officers' guns away in order to provide "safety" for the residents at a debate.

And in November, following BLM activist Newsom's threats, Adams reassured the crowd that the city "must zero in on gun violence in our community." He stressed that he was not going to give up on the promise to restore the police unit and assured that "this city is not going to be a city of riots, it’s not going to be a city of burning."