An Assassination and an Acquittal: Can Eric Adams Navigate New York’s Turmoil?

A subway rider chokes a belligerent fellow passenger on the floor of an uptown F train, leading to his death. A hooded gunman kills the CEO of a multibillion-dollar health insurance company on a midtown sidewalk. The two New York cases had little in common, other than generating fear, controversy, and thousands of headlines. They’d occurred 18 months apart. Yet here they were coming to dramatic conclusions just two hours apart, and with major ramifications for Mayor Eric Adams.

At a City Hall press conference, his police commissioner praised her department’s pursuit of the man who, it’s alleged, fatally shot Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. “NYPD investigators combed through thousands of hours of video, followed up on hundreds of tips, and processed every bit of forensic evidence, DNA, fingerprints, IP addresses, and so much more to tighten the net,” Jessica Tisch said at a City Hall press conference. “We deployed drones, K-9 units, and scuba divers. We leveraged the domain awareness system, Argus cameras, and conducted aviation canvasses.”

Which sounded highly impressive. Had New York’s cops uncovered the name of the alleged shooter on their own? Well, no. Had they determined how he traveled, during the course of five days, from the city to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he had just been arrested? Nope. Had police themselves spotted Luigi Mangione and cornered him? Actually, a McDonald’s employee was the one to raise the alarm.

Yes, that identification would have been impossible if not for the diligent work of NYPD detectives and technicians frantically combing through hundreds of hours of surveillance video to yield photos of the person of interest. And much of that video might have been inaccessible if not for the efforts of Tisch, in a previous job as the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for IT, pushing to expand the reach of the city’s camera and surveillance system. But it all made for a peculiar sort of victory lap—especially when combined with the outcome of the second high-profile case.

Daniel Penny, a former Marine, had been acquitted on a count of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator with a history of mental health problems who was ranting and threatening passengers inside a subway car. (A second-degree manslaughter charge against Penny was dismissed.) Days before the verdict, Adams had seemed to defend Penny’s actions. He was now conspicuously muted. “Jordan should not have had to die. And I strongly believe, as I’ve been stating, probably from day one, we have a mental health system that is broken,” the mayor said. “But a jury of his peers heard the case, so all the facts and all the evidence, and made a decision and I join [District Attorney Alvin] Bragg in stating that I respect the process.”

The CEO shooting got more national attention and sparked a deeply necessary, if ultimately futile, discussion of this country’s fractured health care system. But it’s the subway case that will likely resonate more with city voters and have greater ramifications for Adams’s reelection chances next year. In 2021, Adams ran for mayor and won largely on his background as a former cop and on his promise to reduce crime after a pandemic-driven spike. And his administration has made progress on public safety: The number of murders in 2024 and burglaries will be down by roughly 15% and 18%, respectively, from two years ago (though rape and felony assault complaints have jumped). Yet the public is often more responsive to perceptions than to statistics: An October poll by Siena College and The New York Times showed 48% of city’s registered voters still agree with the statement that “crime in New York City has gotten out of control.”

The mayor has been more successful at enforcing the laws than delivering a sense of order. The disconnect has been fueled both by conditions on the streets, where the numbers of homeless people and recent migrants have increased, and by the turmoil inside City Hall. Tisch is the fourth police commissioner in three years; one of her predecessors, Edward Caban, quit as a corruption investigation swirled, one of at least five federal probes being conducted into the mayor and his associates. Adams himself was indicted in late September, on federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. He has combatted those accusations with strenuous denials of guilt, but also by appearing to cozy up to President-elect Donald Trump, who could push to make the case go away or pardon Adams, either in advance or if the mayor is eventually convicted. A trial is scheduled for April.

Adams also has a penchant for saying things that add to the chaos. Last week, NY1’s Jamie Stelter asked the mayor, who was a registered member of the GOP for several years in the ’90s, if he’s considering becoming a Republican again. Instead of dismissing the idea, Adams played it coy, saying, “The party that’s the most important for me is the American party—I’m a part of the American party.”

His answer seemed more annoyed than calculated. Yet flirting with the idea of a party switch has its own kind of twisted logic. It could further endear Adams to Trump. And Adams shares an appeal with many of the more conservative and working-class voters who boosted Trump’s share in the city this time around. The mayor has since walked back the idea of a party switch and said he expects to win the Democratic primary in June, which in New York basically decides the mayoral contest. But he’s likely to borrow from Trump in emphasizing immigration, the cost of living, and crime. “If he can talk about ways to improve quality of life without necessarily aligning with Trump’s talking points, and renews the focus on voters instead of himself, that’s the key,” says Basil Smikle, a New York Democratic strategist.

Adams will also need enough lead time to resolve his own legal troubles before the primary. Assuming he’s still in the race by then, one lingering question will be whether he has brought more stability to his own government. “What people want is consistency,” says Camille Rivera, a Democratic strategist who often works with progressive candidates. “They want a mayor that isn’t flaky, who can run a city. That’s what the Democratic primary is going to be about.” New York and Adams, though, seem congenitally allergic to predictability.