Around 300 protesters showed up to demonstrate against various policies of the Adams administration as New York City Mayor Eric Adams delivered his “State of the City” address inside Hostos Community College in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx on Jan. 24.

 

The protestors consisted of members of over a dozen local non-profits with each organization protesting against different policies of the Adams administration. Some included NYPD arrest practices, the closing of Rikers Island jail, and U.S. support for Israel in relation to the war in Gaza.

 

Some held signs which read, “We Demand Mayor Adams Face our Families,” “Treatment not Jails,” and “Don’t Let Mayor Adams Kill Again: Shut Rikers Down.” Calls to close Rikers Island jail were renewed after the first death in custody of 2024 in the City jail was confirmed earlier this month.

 

One guest speaker at the rally was Sammy Feliz, brother of Allan Feliz, 31, who, as reported, was fatally shot by an NYPD police officer during a traffic stop on Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood in October 2019, when he attempted to evade arrest.

According to the NYPD, unbeknownst to the officers, Allan Feliz had been on federal supervised release and was in possession of cocaine and methamphetamine [but was reportedly unarmed]. He identified himself as his brother, Sammy, and the driver’s license he gave police belonged to his brother. The officers ran the name on the driver’s license and discovered that Sammy Feliz had multiple open warrants, prompting the arrest. The NYPD later released video footage of the incident.

 

Speaking to the crowd at the rally, Sammy Feliz, who was previously interviewed about his brother’s death by Norwood News in 2020, charged, “Mayor Adams is using the City’s budget to shield cops from discipline, and he’s lying to New Yorkers and protecting the NYPD’s abusive practices at the expense of our communities.”

 

The “How Many Stops Act” is a New York City Council law that requires the NYPD to record and report data on certain types of interactions with the public, specifically “Level 1” and “Level 2” investigative encounters with members of the public.

 

Adams had sought to veto the law because in his view, it clogged up officers’ time with what he viewed as too much admin, and suggested officers’ time would be better spent fighting crime.

In late January, the City Council voted to override the mayor’s veto. Local Bronx Councilman Kevin Riley (C.D. 12), among other city council members, had shared their own experiences at the time of being stopped by police in the context of advocating for the passage of the bill into law.

 

Sammy Feliz pushed back on other separate comments made by the mayor in the context of the City’s budget and proposed cuts, wherein Adams had broadly suggested the budget had become more difficult to balance due to the increased costs in recent years associated with housing newly arrived immigrants to the City.

 

“Mayor Adams lied when he blamed his mismanagement of the City’s finances on asylum seekers, as was proven by the City Comptroller and others,” Sammy Feliz said. “Mayor Adams has been lying since his campaign when he promised police accountability and transparency, and Mayor Adams is lying again about the ‘How Many Stops Act’.”

 

As reported at the time, then-District 11 City Councilman Andrew Cohen, who represented Norwood, told Norwood News he had already seen the video and appeared convinced the officers were in danger prior to Feliz being killed.

 

“If you look at the moment where the sergeant pulled the trigger, to me it seems irrefutable that at that moment, the police officers were in real serious danger,” said Cohen who is now a Bronx judge. “In my opinion, there was a failure of tactics here. I think this probably could have been averted. I don’t know what is the constitutionality of asking the driver for his keys. But when they stopped this guy and asked him for his license, registration, and keys, he would be alive today because the only weapon he had was his vehicle, and you would’ve disarmed him.”

 

Cohen also reviewed footage from multiple cameras, that included those of two officers and a building camera. “It’s not perfect. The body cameras fall off of both officers by the end of the incident,” he said.

 

The two officers involved in the shooting remained on the force but were reassigned to another precinct. The sergeant remained on active duty, according to the NYPD. A lawsuit was later filed by the Feliz family.

 

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit (SIPU) later released a report on the investigation into the Feliz’s death in September 2020, the year which ignited worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 by former Police Office Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of his killing in April 2021, as reported. Chauvin is appealing the conviction.

Upon release of the report, which can be read here, by the SIPU, officials said, “After a comprehensive investigation, SIPU did not find criminal culpability on the part of the members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) who were involved in the incident. Based on witness accounts, considerable video evidence, and an exhaustive review of the facts, the use of deadly force could not be proven to be unjustified beyond a reasonable doubt, as the legal standard requires.”

 

Although SIPU found no criminal culpability in what what was described as a “tragic matter,” officials said there were several serious concerns about the NYPD’s handling of the incident. SIPU officials said they issued a number of recommendations to address these concerns, including reiterating the call to remove NYPD officers from engaging in routine traffic enforcement altogether.

 

They said the vast majority of traffic stops, including the one during which Feliz was killed, do not involve criminal conduct. They said, despite this, the involvement of police in such situations can result in violent interactions. They said that to the extent the NYPD continues to be involved in traffic enforcement, it should direct officers not to arrest motorists for open warrants related to minor offenses.

 

The attorney general said at the time. “The death of Allan Feliz was a tragedy, and I offer my deepest sympathies to his family and loved ones during this time.” She added, “My office conducted an exhaustive investigation into the events surrounding Mr. Feliz’s death, and determined that we could not prove that the use of deadly force was unjustified beyond a reasonable doubt, as the law requires in order to bring charges.”

 

James continued, “The decisive question under the law is whether an officer reasonably believes that an individual is in imminent danger, and it would be impossible to prove otherwise in this situation. While criminal charges were not warranted, we were gravely concerned by some of the actions of the responding officers and issued a number of recommendations that the NYPD should take into account, including removing officers from engaging in any type of routine traffic enforcement activity.”

 

Meanwhile, Sunny Vasquez of Pelham Parkway, an organizer and farmer at New Roots Community Farm, located at East 153rd Street and the Grand Concourse, explained why she was participating in the rally. “We’re out here protesting Eric Adams and all of his budget cuts pertaining to the health, the mental health, and wellbeing of all New Yorkers and also, his claims and scams with the migrant crisis that he’s touting in order to increase and do these budget cuts,” Vasquez said.

Asked which scams Vasquez was referring to, she said, “Well, he’s been saying that there’s billions of dollars that’s needed in order for the migrants to be able to have housing, but the way they have them set up, the 30–60-day policy that they’re now housing them… they had them in tents out in Floyd Bennet (Field) in freezing cold weather! It’s just inhumane! It’s inhumane and he just continues to use his platform to mostly go to clubs and be in certain situations, but not necessarily care about the people of the city.”

 

Rachel Cholst of Washington Heights is an academic advisor at Hostos Community College, which is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) public education system. She said she helps students register for classes and ensure they have all of the resources they need to be successful in school.

 

“What we see over and over again is students that drop out of classes because they need to work,” Cholst said. “They work overnight to help their families pay rent and these are 18-year-olds who are only getting two hours of sleep before coming to class, because they’re just trying to make all their ends meet for their households.”

 

She continued, “And then when they do sign up for classes, we don’t always have enough classes to meet demands, and most of our professors are adjuncts, not full time, so they don’t have a lot of rights. They’re not paid fairly for their labor and overall there’s just a lack of resources at every end. Students can’t make rent; they don’t have enough money for food. They’re waiting weeks and weeks and months for their EBT cards because there aren’t enough workers at HRA right now.”

She added, “This wall over here on East 149th Street has been covered in graffiti since 2020 and hasn’t been cleaned. This is a government building. What are we doing? Why can’t we even make it look nice? We don’t even have the money for that. I would say this has been going on for years of course, but the recent cuts make it worse. Students don’t have enough food on the table. They have a lot of trouble accessing social services because people quit during the pandemic and haven’t been rehired and then at CUNY itself, we’ve just been getting less and less funding every year and we barley have enough to serve the students we do have.”

 

Norwood News previously reported on the CUNY cuts which took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact upon students and faculty.

 

To read what the mayor had to say about the State of the City, click here.