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🌊 Roca’s Exclusive Interview with Mayor Eric Adams
NYC’s mayor sat down with Roca to discuss what we know about Monday’s shooting
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By Max Frost and Max Towey
On Monday, a gunman opened fire in Midtown Manhattan, killing four people at a skyscraper that houses the NFL and Blackstone, the private equity giant. The shooter left a note that mentioned CTE, the often football-induced brain condition. The dead included a police officer who had immigrated from Bangladesh and whose wife was pregnant with their third child.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Adams gave an exclusive sit-down interview about the shooting to Roca co-founders Max and Max. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Max Towey and Max Frost interview NYC Mayor Eric Adams
Max T: Mayor Adams, what do we know right now about the shooting?
Mayor Adams: There are a couple things that we have information on, and there are a couple of leads that we are following. We know that the person who carried out the act was from Las Vegas, he drove across town, arrived in our city yesterday. He had one intention, based on what we're seeing, and that is to inflict violence, and everyone he came in contact with, he either shot or attempted to shoot, except for one person.
He was entering an elevator, a person came off the elevator. He did not shoot her and ignored her as she was able to exit the building, but he wreaked havoc, took the lives of five people, one of them is himself, one person is holding on for his life right now, but it was a clear act of violence that we have not witnessed in this city in many years, and our heart goes out to Officer Islam and all of the victims of this shooting.
We know there were two guns in his possession. One gun was in the vehicle, a revolver, he appeared to have purchased that with a carry permit, the other gun that was used in the actual shootings – part of the gun was purchased by an associate of his. We are tracking down all the leads, two teams of detectives are now in Las Vegas where they're going to look at his house, search his house, and they're going to follow the leads on the guns.
Max F: As a former police officer yourself, can you talk a bit about when this happens, what happens with the first responders? What are they doing?
Mayor Adams: They are going in as quick as possible, but they're not going in recklessly. They're not going to delay because delay can cause the loss of lives, and what I really want to commend these responding officers is that they went in the building with the full knowledge that there's a shooter inside. While others were running away from the danger, which they should do, these officers were running towards the danger.
When you hear people criticize and attack police officers, they don't fully understand what it takes in a level of nobility to run towards danger. They went in, did a floor-by-floor search with the lack of knowledge if there were other shooters involved, if there were incendiary devices involved.
Max F: This is coming not long after the alleged Luigi Mangione killing, not far from there. A lot of people came out in support of Luigi, and even now you're seeing people celebrating the death of a Blackstone executive in the building.
What do you think, as the mayor of the city, when you see that? People almost encouraging certain acts of violence?
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Editor’s Note
For those of you who thought we’ve been making up this whole news company thing, perhaps today’s picture of us with the mayor will change your minds. In all seriousness, though, thank you for reading. It’s because of your support that we have grown from being a basement blog to sitting down with the mayor the day after a major crisis.
While yesterday’s conversation was generally limited to the shooting on Monday, we’re hoping to have a longer sit-down with him in the coming weeks. If there are any questions you’d like us to ask, reply to this email to let us know.
In the meantime, lots of feedback to yesterday’s piece on the decline of late-night comedy. We loved reading these.
Robert wrote:
I think the reason Shane (and Matt) are so popular is they simply make fun of everything, no-one or anything is safe from them. Especially Shane who will happily rip on his own family and friends. It's refreshing and incredibly funny to hear someone talking like they would sat across from their friends after a few beers. No harm, no malice, just making each other laugh. He also pulls no punches when laughing at himself and happily self deprecates whenever he finds the opportunity.
In the interest of honesty, i am a avid listener of the podcast and the Patreon and nothing lightens my day more than hearing Him, Matt and their little gang of producers and guests ripping into anything that comes across their path.
P.S love your news and deep dives. Hope you can get the android app running soon!
Brian wrote:
Colbert and Kimmel were absolutely hilarious at one time, until they decided to go political. Make fun of politicians on all sides, they certainly provide more than enough material. I think we are inundated with political b.s. All day long on the cable and network news channels, social media and even in the office. I truly believe people just want to laugh and not be so serious all the time. We need a break from the stress of life and that is what comedy has always provided. They strayed from this and their ratings and unfortunately their staff are going to pay the price. Hopefully getting off main stream tv will free them up to just being funny again.
J wrote:
At least 75% of each episode of late night television consists of commercials. I find it hard to believe that CBS was losing $40-60M per year having the highest-rated late night series. If those same metrics are used, then Kimmel, Fallon, and all the others with lower viewership should also be on the lookout for a new job soon. To save some production costs, NBC got rid of the live band on the Seth Meyers show last year. It is troubling that CBS couldn't find an alternative answer other than simply gutting their entire late night schedule. It would have made more sense to me to cancel the CBS Overnight news program and Behind the Gates (their hour-long daytime soap), which has to have some high production costs associated with it. Perhaps this is the true death knell of broadcast television. Might as well completely sign-off after the late local news (and The Star Spangled Banner).
And Ann wrote:
Terrific article on Late night. More understandable info than any media outlet. So if late night is fading, what about day time specifically the View? Years ago it was a good program. Now it just seems to be nasty women bemoaning that everyone but them are smart and that they didn’t get their way. I find it depressing to watch.
Love you all
And if you haven’t read our latest articles, find them here:
See you tomorrow,
Max and Max