Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday vehemently defended the recent personnel changes he has made at the city’s police oversight board and hate crimes prevention unit, which have drawn scrutiny over the past week.
Hizzoner was asked why he recently decided to remove Arva Rice as interim chair of the NYPD oversight panel, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), amid reports that he pushed her out over her public criticism of the department.
Adams was also pressed on his reported move to fire Hassan Naveed from his post as executive director of the city’s Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes — a move Naveed charges was because he is Muslim. The firing was first reported by the Daily News.
In response, the mayor denied pushing Rice out of her position or firing Naveed because of his religious beliefs.
According to a report from The New York Times, Adams moved to oust Rice, who has served as interim CCRB chair since 2022, after she sharply criticized the time it took the NYPD to release body camera footage documenting the police shooting of Kawaski Trawick. Police shot and killed Trawick, a 32-year-old Black, gay man, in the kitchen of his Bronx apartment in 2019.
Rice was a holdover from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration but was appointed by Adams as the board’s interim chair in February 2022.
According to the Times, Rice angered the administration when she took the NYPD to task during a board meeting two weeks ago. She argued the time it took the department to release body-camera footage of the fatal shooting, 18 months, made it harder for the board to recommend misconduct charges against the officers.
Subsequent reporting from the Daily News found that Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks had been pushing to remove Rice and replace her since last summer.
But when asked on Tuesday why Rice is being removed and whether he was aware of Banks’ alleged activities, Adams said he simply wants to appoint his own chair. The mayor added that he has offered Rice the chance to stay on the board, but not as chair.
“She was acting, she was not appointed as the chair, she was acting for two years,” Adams said. “All of my deputy mayors come give me advice, but the buck stops with the mayor … I’m lost that people don’t see that the mayor should appoint who he wants to be his chair. I mean that’s baffling to me. These are not lifetime positions. You don’t stay there forever.”
When it comes to Naveed, the Daily News reported last week that he was fired without explanation earlier this month and intends to sue the administration for discrimination, alleging he was terminated because of his religion.
However, the mayor denied that Naveed was given the boot because of his Muslim faith. Instead, Adams insisted he was fired because he failed to lower the number of hate crimes across the five boroughs.
“You’re given a responsibility in a role; you’re in charge of hate crimes; I’m seeing an increase in hate crimes,” Adams said. “To say that you were fired because you’re Muslim? I mean as many Muslim staffers that I have … People have to live up to what they’re hired to do, taxpayers deserve that.”
Adams declined to share more about why Naveed was terminated, saying, “I can’t go into the details over it because there’s a lawsuit. Let the lawyers figure it out.”
Both Rice and Naveed’s departures are part of a spate of staffing shake-ups across Adams’ administration that have come into public view in recent weeks. They follow revelations that Adams is looking to replace the city’s current top counsel, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, with controversial hard-nosed attorney Randy Mastro.
While Adams has yet to formally nominate Mastro for the post, his likely nomination is already facing significant opposition in the City Council, which must approve the mayor’s pick.
Adams, during a TV interview last week, chalked the recent turnover up to the usual changes a mayor makes to his administration’s leadership team midway through his first term.
“We’re over two years into an administration; I’ve been shifting people around, I’ve been making changes, and that is something that I have to do based on my powers,” Adams said last week. “Making these movements throughout my administration; this is what you do when you get to the halfway point.”
