Eric Adams to address NYC crime with business elite

A who’s who of New York’s business elite will be attending an emergency meeting Thursday sponsored by Gotham’s largest business group and Mayor Eric Adams to address the city’s crime problem and its impact on people who work there, FOX Business has learned.

The CEOs who have confirmed their attendance include Goldman Sachs’ chief David Solomon, Wells Fargo’s Charles Scharf, Blackstone’s Steven Schwarzman, American Express’s Stephen Squeri, Loews Hotels’ Jim Tisch, and Adam Silver, Commissioner of the National Basketball Association.

More than 100 others are expected to join the call in which executives will tell Adams that the city’s crime problem must be addressed immediately, or they will not mandate a full return to the office for their tens of thousands of employees even as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes. They also want a bigger police presence on subway platforms and the streets.

On Sunday morning, Daniel Enriquez was on his way to brunch when he was shot and killed by a man wielding a gun on the Q train. The suspect, Andrew Abdullah, had a lengthy rap sheet and was arrested by police this afternoon after turning himself in.

Enriquez was employed by Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs, and he is just the latest crime victim who belonged to the city’s finance industry — one of the Big Apple’s largest employers. Earlier this year, Deloitte USA employee Michelle Go was murdered after being pushed in front of a subway car.

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Felony subway crime was up 53% last month compared to the previous April, according to NYPD statistics released on Friday.

"This was a shock that disrupts the momentum that was building for restoring a sense of normalcy in the city and on the subway," says Kathy Wylde, CEO of Partnership for New York City. "Employers are eager to bring their people back to the office, but they are not going to issue mandates that expose employees to personal injury or worse." 

Adams has been ramping up the rhetoric on getting corporate employees to come back to Manhattan full-time while simultaneously attempting to get a handle on an alarming spike in violent crimes. Getting people back in the office will help bring more tax revenues to city coffers as workers spend money in restaurants and shops.

But only 8% of Manhattan office employees have returned five days a week, and a mere 38% are coming into the office part-time, according to recent data from the Partnership for New York City.

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Adams, who has been in office just four months, courted the business community during his successful mayoral campaign with promises to address crime that soared under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Now many of his business community supporters have become critics. Adams has faced opposition in the state legislature in his push to end so-called bail reform, which allows repeat offenders to remain at large even after arrest and without posting bond. Still, several executives told Fox Business that the new mayor seems to be enjoying the trappings of his job a bit too much and not spending enough time on core issues such as rising crime and homelessness.

FOX Business has confirmed that at the time of the Enriquez shooting on Sunday, Adams was attending a swanky event at the New York Stock Exchange hosted by luxury fashion house Balenciaga. Sources tell FOX Business Adams had a front-row seat next to celebrities Kanye West and Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour. 

Prior to that, Adams attended several parties out in Los Angeles while there for a speaking engagement at the Milken Institute Global Conference. The mayor was seen days prior at the city’s annual Met Gala, where he was photographed on the red carpet donning an "End Gun Violence" jacket.

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Enriquez’s murder marks the fourth subway homicide this year.