Harlem City Council Member Yusef Salaam says he was stopped by police on Jan. 26, but they refused to explain why.
Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit
Harlem City Council Member Yusef Salaam abruptly pulled out of his planned participation in a police ride-along Saturday night, at Mayor Eric Adams’ invitation, after he says police stopped him Friday and refused to explain why.
The episode occurred just days before Salaam and the City Council are scheduled to take a vote to override Mayor Adams’ veto of the How Many Stops Act, legislation that would require NYPD officers to document certain interactions with the public — something proponents see as essential to accountability and ending racial profiling, and the mayor sees as a bureaucratic stranglehold on cops.
Salaam, a progressive elected official who won the 9th District seat last year, was one of the “Exonerated Five,” previously known as the “Central Park Five,” a group of youths wrongfully accused and convicted of raping a jogger in 1989. After having his name cleared and being freed from prison, Salaam went on to become an advocate for criminal justice reform, serving on the board of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit working to overturn wrongful convictions across America.
But on Friday night, the lawmaker says he was riding along with his family through Harlem when he was suddenly pulled over by officers in the 28th Precinct.
“I introduced myself as Councilman Yusef Salaam, and subsequently asked the officer why I was pulled over,” Salaam said in a Jan. 27 statement. “Instead of answering my question, the officer stated, ‘We’re done here,’ and proceeded to walk away.”
Ironically, the stop happened, according to a Politico reporter, while Salaam was on a call with other City Council members and the New York Civil Liberties Union regarding police stops.
The brief encounter, Salaam indicated, served as an example of the type of encounters the NYPD would be required to…
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