The NYPD’s top cop bucked Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday by again calling for a rollback of bail reform — as Mayor Eric Adams refused to take on his fellow Democrat less than a week before her tight race against challenger Lee Zeldin comes to a head.
During a brief interview, The Post asked Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell whether Hochul needed to go further in allowing judges to lock up dangerous defendants.
“From the very beginning, we have asked for changes to the bail reform law,” Sewell said following an unrelated news conference in Manhattan’s Central Park.
“We ask for judges to be able to consider whether the person is a public safety threat before deciding whether to remand, release or set bail.”
Sewell added: “I think it’s important we make sure that we look at whether or not the [legal] discovery rules are really keeping the criminal justice system moving in the direction we need it to move in.
“We’ve made that point clear from the very beginning and we hope they’ll consider that in the very near future,” she said.
Afterward, The Post asked Adams to respond to Sewell’s remarks and to reveal whether he’s privately pressed Hochul, a fellow Democrat, to make those changes.
Adams — who’s publicly advocated for rolling back bail reform — dodged the questions one day after a pair of polls split on the subject of who’s ahead in the state’s closely watched, neck-and-neck race for governor.
“I say this over and over again: everyone wants to talk about only bail. Our system is broken. And it takes a level of discipline to look at every aspect of that broken system,” he said during an unrelated news conference at City Hall.
“And I am aligned with Gov. Hochul on far too many of those issues, and I’m leaning to those issues that we are aligned on.”
Adams added: “I’m going to continue to articulate the issues that I think are important.”
Earlier this year, Hochul refused Adams’ request to call a special session of the Legislature to deal with surging crime rates and she later ruled out any discussion of bail reform until after lawmakers reconvene in January.
Zeldin, an outgoing Republican House member from Long Island, has vowed that, if elected, he’ll immediately declare a crime emergency and suspend the controversial 2019 bail reform law.
“We wholeheartedly agree with the police commissioner that judges need the discretion to assess dangerousness. I think law environment speaks with one voice on that,” Louis Civello of the Suffolk County PBA told The Post.
He’s part of an independent expenditure group, the Long Island Law Enforcement Association, that is spending heavily on ads pushing New Yorkers to vote for tough on crime candidates.
“We are trying to elect officials that are letting us do our jobs. Bail reform and crime are the biggest issues. This bail law needs to be changed, it needs to be repealed.”