New York mayor’s account of slain cop’s photo called into question: report

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ account of a photo of a slain police officer he claims to have kept in his wallet for decades has been called into question, The New York Times reports.

Adams, himself a former police captain who won the election as mayor campaigning as a crime fighter, first mentioned that he kept a crumpled photo of Officer Robert Venable, who was killed in 1987 while on duty, in the aftermath of the killings of two New York City police officers who were killed while responding to a domestic disturbance.

“I still think about Robert,” Mr. Adams said at a news conference in the aftermath of the Jan. 2022 killings of the two officers. “I keep a picture of Robert in my wallet.”

Adams posed for a portrait of him holding the photo at a ceremony about a week later after The Times asked to see it.

But the photo Adams claims he kept in his wallet was actually printed out by City Hall aides from an image found on an Internet search, noting that the photo was printed in black and white to give it the appearance of an older photo and coffee was splashed on it to make it look weathered.

The report cites a city employee granted anonymity over fear of retribution.

Fabien Levy, an Adams spokesman, did not dispute that the photo Adams displayed at the ceremony had been created by his aides, but stood by the mayor’s assertion that he had carried a photo of Venable for decades, the report said.

Levy assailed The Times, alleging the outlet was engaged in a “campaign to paint the mayor as a liar.”

“The Times’s efforts to attack the mayor here would be laughable if it were not so utterly offensive,” Levy said in a statement on Wednesday.

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