Mayor Adams vetoes bills on police transparency and solitary confinement

After a failed and unusually lengthy effort to convince the New York City Council to repeal a bill that would require police to document more of their interactions with the public, Mayor Eric Adams vetoed the legislation on Friday, arguing that this would harm public safety.

“We can't handcuff the police,” Mr. Adams said at a news conference at City Hall, where he was surrounded by community supporters and police officials. “We want to handcuff bad people to violence.”

Hours later, the mayor also vetoed a bill that would ban solitary confinement in the city's jails.

That Mr. Adams, a former police commissioner who ran for mayor on public safety issues, would oppose the bills is not surprising. But it was unusual for the mayor to oppose the bills so fiercely – he ordered a PR campaign that included an animated video – as they had been approved by the Council with a veto-proof majority.

The mayor said Friday that he has had conversations with numerous council members about the bills, suggesting he has been able to convince some to oppose the police legislation in particular.

Despite the mayor's late insistence, the City Council is “willing to override both of the mayor's vetoes,” said Council President Adrienne Adams. It would be the second and third time the Council has overruled the mayor, following a decision in July to override his veto of a housing voucher program.

The mayor's position — supported by the deputy mayor for public safety, the police commissioner and the head of the department, all of whom sided with Mr. Adams on Friday — is that the police bill would endanger safety by restricting officers forcing them to perform unnecessary administrative tasks after interactions with the public.

An “everyday involvement” becomes a “transactional administration,” said Edward Caban, the city's first Latino police chief.

The bill, part of the so-called How Many Stops Act, would require police officers to record basic information about investigative stops with the public. Officers would be asked to record details such as the race, age and gender of the people they encounter and the factors that led to the interaction.

Police officers were already required to document certain interactions with the public, such as when they stop and question someone they believe has committed a crime. The municipality wants the police to also register other types of interactions, such as interrogating a potential suspect or requesting information from someone.

The bill aims to document what lawmakers say are discriminatory and unreported stops by police. In 2013, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that police used stop-and-frisk tactics to racially profile black and Latino men after the practice's use surged under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

The use of stop-and-frisk dropped dramatically under Mayor Bill de Blasio, but has started to rise again under Mr. Adams. A federal monitor appointed after the lawsuit found that police underreported checks and conducted too many illegal checks.

Jeffrey Maddrey, the department's head, said that under the new police law he would be forced to document an interaction he had at the New York City Marathon with a runner when he checked on the person's condition and offered Gatorade. The bill's sponsors said Chief Maddrey's interpretation of the legislation was incorrect.

“The term investigative encounter means an interaction between a member of the department and a member of the public for law enforcement or investigative purposes,” said Jumaane Williams, the city's public advocate, who introduced the bill to the City Council. “The term does not include casual conversation or interaction.”

Mr. Williams accused the mayor of spreading “Trumpian lies” about the legislation for political purposes. At 28 percent, Mr. Adams has the lowest approval rating in a Quinnipiac University poll since it began surveying the city in 1996. The mayor also faces a federal investigation into his campaign's fundraising, though he has not been accused of wrongdoing.

The mayor has also been criticized for his handling of the influx of more than 160,000 asylum seekers, which has put pressure on the city's shelter system and budget.

“The mayor is in a slump,” Mr. Williams said. “He's waving all over the place, so he wants to tell New Yorkers that he's the hero who can save them and he's using this basic reporting law to demonstrate that.”

Mr Adams has not limited his criticism of the bill to social media. The mayor used a recent appearance at a bar mitzvah to ask Jewish New Yorkers to support his effort to repeal the legislation.

“This is our line in the sand,” the mayor said at the event.

At one gala on Thursday eveningMr. Adams also criticized a close ally, the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry lobbying organization, for not doing enough to fight the bill.

The group's chairman, James Whelan, was stunned by the admonition.

“At last night's event,” Mr. Whelan said in a statement, “we appreciated the opportunity to hear from the Mayor and his team for the first time about the How Many Stops Act.”

Dana Rubinstein reporting contributed.