Yusef Salaam By Peabody Awards - Raymond Santana / Kevin Richardson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikipedia
CV NEWS FEED // A bipartisan chorus of lawmakers blasted Democratic New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam after he implied he was “racially profiled” at a brief police traffic stop during which he received no ticket.
The police officer who pulled over Salaam decided to let the councilman go without a penalty upon learning his profession. The officer made that decision despite the fact that Salaam had visibly broken multiple laws.
Salaam is the chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
Following the incident, Salaam quickly and publicly criticized the New York Police Department (NYPD).
“Last night, while driving with my wife and children and listening in to a call with my Council colleagues on speakerphone, I was pulled over by an NYPD officer in my beloved village of Harlem,” Salaam indicated in a Saturday statement.
“I introduced myself as Councilman Yusef Salaam, and subsequently asked the officer why I was pulled over,” he claimed. “Instead of answering my question, the officer stated, ‘We’re done here,’ and proceeded to walk away.”
“This experience only amplified the importance of transparency for all police investigative stops, because the lack of transparency allows racial profiling and unconstitutional stops of all types to occur and often go unreported,” Salaam added.
The NYPD contested the councilman’s account and proceeded to call the stop “legal and professional.”
In a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter), the department noted that Salaam’s sedan had windows with “dark tint beyond legal limits, a violation of New York State law.”
The NYPD also pointed out that the lawmaker’s car had Georgia license plates.
“According to Board of Elections records, Salaam registered to vote in [New York] on July 27, 2022, and had 30 days after that to transfer his Georgia vehicle registration to New York under [state] law,” reported The New York Post.
The NYPD’s statement was accompanied by a 41-second video of the encounter taken by the officer’s body camera.
“As the video shows, throughout this interaction, the officer conducted himself professionally and respectfully. He followed all proper procedures,” the NYPD stated:
This officer should be commended for his polite, professional, and repsectful conduct and for using his discretion appropriately so the councilmember could complete his official duties.
>> ‘MASS EXODUS’ OF NYPD OFFICERS AS CITY REELS FROM MIGRANT CRISIS <<
After the NYPD released its statement, fellow Democratic New York City Councilman Robert Holden called for Salaam to step down from his leadership post.
“This is damning,” Holden wrote on X Saturday evening. “[A]n elected official with illegal tints and out-of-state plates, not legally registered, using his official title to evade the law. Worse yet, he lied about the exchange until NYPD set the record straight.”
“Salaam should resign as Public Safety Chair,” Holden concluded.
The City Council’s Committee on Public Safety has jurisdiction over the NYPD.
“The stop was not illegal,” agreed Republican City Councilwoman Joann Ariola. “What is illegal is the percentage of tinting on his windows, using your Council Member title to get out of a ticket and lying about the interaction.”
“How can we expect him to be impartial as chair of the Public Safety Committee when he did not depict an accurate accounting of the event?” Ariola asked.
“What is sad is taking an incident where someone cuts you a break, does right by you, and then misrepresenting the truth to get them in trouble,” wrote City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli.
“Had body cam footage surface of me using my office hoping to get out of a ticket surfaced, I wonder how different the response would have been?” the Republican asked on X.
Ironically, Salaam’s stop occurred just days before the City Council voted to override Mayor Eric Adams’ veto of the “How Many Stops Act,” a bill heralded by far-left “police reform” activists. Salaam voted for the legislation.
In defending his position, Adams said that the Act would “force officers to spend more time filling out paperwork instead of protecting and building relationships with New Yorkers.”
Some of the bill’s critics called it a “betrayal” of minority communities.
The New York Post added that during a Monday radio interview, Adams “dodged the controversy by saying that both Salaam and the unnamed officer displayed ‘a level of courteousness and professionalism’ that should be commended.”
In 1989, Salaam was one of five then-teenagers accused of raping a woman who was jogging in Central Park. Together, they were convicted the following year and spent several years in prison. During this time, the co-defendants were collectively dubbed the “Central Park Five.”
Salaam was exonerated and released from prison in 1997. Another man eventually confessed to committing the crime.
