In a May 14, 2025, interview on 94.7 The Block’s “Jonesy In The Morning,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams discussed the tragic shooting of a 16-year-old girl in the Bronx, highlighting the impact of lenient criminal justice laws like “Raise the Age” on rising youth gun violence. Adams criticized the revolving door system that allows young offenders to evadeserious consequences, contributing to desensitization and increased crime. He emphasized city initiatives like universal after-school programs, mindfulness training, and the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), which enrolled 90,000 young people in 2025, targeting high-violence areas. Adams also promoted safe public pools and swimming lessons to provide positive alternatives for youth, underscoring the need for community and government collaboration to curb violence.
Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls in for Interview on 94.7 The Block’s “Jonesy In The Morning”
May 14, 2025
Tarsha Jones: Good morning, Mayor Eric Adams.
Mayor Eric Adams: Hey, how are you? Good morning.
Jones: I’m doing alright as much as I can, because we were talking this morning about the 16-year-old girl that got shot in the head by a stray bullet in the Bronx. So you kind of called in the midst of that conversation, and the callers are [here] expressing their frustration. So we might as well just dive on in, because I saw you at the press conference.
Mayor Adams: And when you think about it, you know, sometimes we watch these violent acts and we feel as though they are just occurring in a vacuum, and they’re not. There are many things that lead up to this type of violence, and one of them is the law that was passed several years ago when we were doing all of the bail reforms and what they call criminal justice reform and there was a part of it that was called raise the age.
This was raising the age of young people who were treated as adults and we saw an increase sister and the number of young people who were victims of crimes like shooting and a young number of young people who were causing the crime and it’s just a real problematic law that was put in place and we stated that it’s going to have long-term impact. So what does that mean?
We’re seeing more and more young people who are carrying guns, adults are having them carry the gun because they know they won’t have any serious consequences because of that and it’s almost a revolving door system and you know lawmakers in Albany look at some of these laws that they’re passing and how these laws impact on the day-to-day lives. You have a 14-year-old young man who shoots a 16-year-old young girl who’s the unintended target. He shot indiscriminately.
Jones: Right, he didn’t even know he was shooting her. He didn’t care. Don’t even have aim and you’re out there with a gun. I said the parents need to be held. Once we have more severe consequences, everybody will pay attention. Then you’ll start scouring your kids’ closets and under their beds and dust drawers and all that.
Then you’ll pay attention because now your ass is on the line. I said, “I don’t care how young you are. You take one of mine, I want your [] in the electric chair.” You’re shattering my life. You don’t get thirty years in jail on taxpayer dollars to be rehabbed. I don’t care about your future because you didn’t care about mine. And the parents need to get thrown in the Venezuelan jail too, damn it.
Mayor Adams: And remember when I did that video years ago, showing parents how to look through the room of their child to see if there’s something in there like a gun or something. People mock me for it. But, you know, I’m sure the parents are not mocking me when something like this happens. We have to be serious about protecting our children and families, and not try to be popular with this far-left philosophy.
Jones: Yes, well, I think that people think that to reach their kids, they have to be friends with their kids. And I ain’t the expert on how to reach kids. Lord knows I’m not. But if you’re reaching, it can’t just begin and end there.
Mayor Adams: Well said, well said. And that, that serious, hardcore love, you know. Remember, we used to all say to our parents, mommy, dad, now I know what you were talking about.
Jones: Mm-hmm, now, now we’re saying it. Right, right. So we’re talking to Mayor Eric Adams, and I wanted to talk to you about other things, and then this unfortunate tragedy happened that got the people calling, because we’ll take a quick break, and we’ll come back.
[Commercial Break.]
Jones: We’re back with Mayor Eric Adams. We’re talking about the 16-year-old girl that tragically got shot in the head by a bullet that wasn’t even intended for her by a 14-year-old that was allegedly involved in some gang. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. All I know is a 14-year-old that can’t even pee straight, doesn’t need to be expected to shoot straight and shouldn’t have a gun.
But mayor, somebody called and said that because they get away with the violence in schools towards teachers, on the trains, on buses, and there’s no harsh consequences, and probably the video games, they start believing GTA and all the things that you can do on those video games, doesn’t really affect you, we’re desensitized to it. If that is the case, or anything within that statement is the case, what on the local level or the state level can we do, if anything?
Mayor Adams: Well, and I think that whatever caller stated that, that the desensitizing of our young people to violence is real. And remember, child brain development to understand actions is at a later age, you know…
Jones: 19 to 20 is when their frontal lobe closes.
Mayor Adams: There you go. And so, there’s a couple of things that we’re doing. Number one, that’s why in this budget, we allocated money for universal after-school, because our children need to be in a safe space. And two, from the time that I got elected, we started doing programs in our schools, like teaching our children mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercise, conflict resolution, and all of these things that should help them, and how to deal with social-emotional intelligence, dealing with conflict in the heat of the moment.
Because we all had little fights in school, all of us, you know, it was the slogan, “I’ll see you after school.” But our little praise during school days turned into a little fist fight, and the next day we all talking to each other. We didn’t have this overproliferation of guns.
Jones: We also didn’t have social media where the little fight went on and on and on. Now you got people from different states mocking you. It doesn’t die now. I understand why they feel like they have to clap back really hard.
Mayor Adams: That’s why I sue social media companies, because they are having a major impact on suicidal ideation, depression, violence, because think about it, you get in that little fight in school and all of a sudden it’s been shown all over the globe, you know, millions of views, and it just feeds into it, so we need a multifaceted attack to this, and this is what I have been doing throughout my administration and I hope this is a wake-up call for a lot of people who don’t know why we would have those guns in our streets. We removed 21,000 illegal guns on our streets and there’s far too many lawmakers who believe in this revolving door recidivist criminal justice system.
Jones: I wish I could say that that was comforting but it seems like the more you take the more still remains.
Mayor Adams: Yeah, no, no, it’s a real struggle, but we gotta lean back into giving families the support that they deserve. And I’ve been focused on that, everything from giving parents good Summer Youth jobs, 100,000 young people, a year-round school with what we call Summer Rising, 110,000 young people, our internship program.
You must give young people alternatives to violence and invest in them, and that’s what we have been doing. But we need a partnership of families and government and communities must play a role in keeping our children safe.
Jones: Thank you for that. Yeah, I was going to ask you about SYEP, I didn’t even know if that was still going on. Are the pools safe?
Mayor Adams: Well, we’re doing an amazing job with our pools here in the city, because I didn’t have access to swimming lessons and pools. We’re doing just the opposite. We have 53 outdoor pools and 13 of them are Olympic and you know we have 23 that are [inaudible], 17 are mini pools for our children and we’re teaching swimming programs for our young people.
Jones: Good.
Mayor Adams: Which is really impressive.
Jones: That’s very important. That shouldn’t even be optional. All kids need to know how to protect themselves in water.
Mayor Adams: Without a doubt. I was out in Queens when we wrote one of our swimming lessons for our young children. They’re learning at a young age how to be familiar with water and how to swim. So all these pools will be open during the summer and we’re looking forward for them to enjoy it.
And you’re talking about the SYEP program. Those are our summer jobs. We have so far enrolled 90,000 young people in the 2025 program.
Jones: Good for you. Thank you for that.
Mayor Adams: And we zero in, like 19,000 of you are in those precincts that [are] dealing with high violence, high rates of gun violence. So we’re targeting those areas to give them the support that they deserve.
Jones: Thank you for that. I used to look forward to my little SYEP check. It was only $75 a week but it didn’t matter because it was every two weeks so I had a whole $150 and straight to Jamaica Avenue I went.
Mayor Adams: I was in Delancey Street… [inaudible].
Jones: Those were the good old days, mayor. I appreciate your time. Hopefully I’ll see you Saturday at Khari Edwards fundraiser for borough president.
Mayor Adams: It sounds like a plan. Let’s [inaudible]. Take care.
Jones: Alright now, that was Mayor Eric Adams.
Sources: NYC.gov , Midtown Tribune ,
Big New York news BigNY.com
