NYC Council sets date to override Mayor Eric Adams’ veto on controversial police stops bill
The City Council will vote on Tuesday to override Mayor Eric Adams’ veto on the controversial police stops bill, requiring cops to log details of the lowest level of official encounters.
“We should all be united in advancing our city by recognizing the harmful legacies of injustice that undermine the health and safety of our city and its neighborhoods,” Speaker Adrienne Adams said in a statement Friday.
“The Council has no interest in prolonging a conversation that has been made unnecessarily toxic by the spreading of fear and misinformation, and we plan to override the mayor’s recent vetoes on Tuesday.”
News of the vote comes a day before 10 councilmembers are expected to take ridealongs with cops in Harlem to see how the bill would work on the street.
The controversial bill, dubbed the How Many Stops Act and sponsored by Pubic Advocate Jumanne Williams, was pushed through at the end of the session last year with a 35-9 margin and seven abstaining.
The vote on the veto is expected to easily surpass the two-thirds majority needed to pass the legislation without the mayor’s sign-off despite a late push from City Hall to sway hesitant council members to their side, according to council sources.
The mayor needed only to get two people from Speaker Adams’ column to his side at first. But sources have told The Post the legislative body has largely fallen in line behind leadership since the bill’s passage, likely increasing the number of votes needed by the mayor to swing to five or even six.
The council needs 34 votes to override the veto.
The act requires cops to collect basic demographic data from people during all levels of stops, including race, age and sex, much of which is already logged by police.
Mayor Adams has made the public and private pitch that forcing cops to record demographic details on the lowest level of stops, level 1, is too time-consuming for a police force with already dwindling ranks.
On average, an officer has around two dozen level 1 stops a shift involving up to 60 people, which police sources have estimated would take officers an added 20 to 30 minutes to document.
Following news of Tuesday’s vote, a City Hall spokesperson said: “We urge councilmembers to uphold the mayor’s veto.”
“We share the Council’s goal of increasing transparency in government and tried to work with them to achieve that — the answer is not to compromise public safety or justice but to work together to craft real solutions,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Supporters of the bill have brushed off Adams’ concerns, saying the process won’t take nearly as long as the mayor has said and argued it is worth the time to collect data.
“The public dialogue fostered by officials at the highest levels of city government over the past several weeks has recklessly misled the public and sought to exploit fear in a way that is disappointing and unfortunate,” Adrienne Adams said.
In addition to the policing bill, the Council is also expected to override the mayor’s much less publicized veto on the ban on solitary confinement, which cleared with 39 yes votes, making it a much higher hurdle for Mayor Adams’ team to clear.
