City Councilman Yusuf Salaam turns out to be not so much a fierce advocate for social justice as just another entitled hack.
The key flag: news, exposed by his recent traffic-stop fracas, that he was driving with Georgia plates, though he moved here in the summer of 2022 to launch his council run.
Everyone is legally required to get New York plates within 30 days after moving to the state.
Yes, lots of folks illegally delay registering to save on insurance premiums, but lawmakers have a particular, and obvious, duty not to be law-breakers.
Especially the chairman of the Public Safety Committee, which oversees the NYPD.
Salaam has now changed the plates, but clearly only because he got caught red-handed.
Plus, of course, Salaam was pulled over for driving with too dark a window tint, also illegal in New York.
And that’s not all the “Laws are for the little people” shenanigans Salaam’s been up to.
He’s also scored tickets for speeding in a school zone (like city Comptroller Brad Lander: What is it with Dems and the need to speed in school zones?) and blocking a bus lane.
Not that the “Write laws, don’t follow them” attitude is his only hackishness.
First off, he had Georgia plates because he lived there until Harlem lefties recruited him to run for the council, 100% on the strength of his fame as a member of the Central Park Five.
And he ran as a moderate on public safety because he knew that crime is a real issue for his district — only to show his true colors by backing the morally odious How Many Stops Act.
That’s the law rammed through over the mayor’s veto to cripple the NYPD’s law enforcement capabilities by drowning cops in paperwork.
And Council Speaker Adrienne Adams plainly installed Salaam as Public Safety chair as a slap at the prior chairwoman, who’d abstained on the first How Many Stops vote.
Salaam used the 100% legitimate traffic stop to justify his backing this obscenity.
He was let go as soon as he identified himself, a break that no average Joe would get, yet still tried to spin up anti-cop propaganda (luckily disproved by bodycam footage showing the officer’s total professionalism).
Whether his poisonous ideology is sincere or simply convenient, he plainly holds the voters he supposedly represents in utter contempt.
