NYC NOW - May 13, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

The NYPD says police officers shot and killed a 33 year old man in East Flatbush in Brooklyn early Sunday morning, an investigation is ongoing. Also, New York City will pay $1.6 million to a man who was sexually abused by a physical therapist while he was held at Rikers Island in response to a lawsuit. And lastly, WNYC will be hosting and broadcasting a debate Monday night among the three candidates in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat held by Bob Menendez. The candidates are Congressman Andy Kim, Patricia Campos Medina and Larry Hamm, and mostly likely whoever wins this primary will be the next senator since a Republican hasn't won a Senate race in New Jersey since 1972. WNYC's Michael Hill and Nancy Solomon, who has been covering the race joins our own Janae Pierre to discuss what issues they'll be exploring in the upcoming debate.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, May 13th. Here's the midday news from Kerry Noll. The NYPD says police officers shot and killed a 33-year-old man in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, early yesterday morning. Police say the officer saw the man pointing a gun at another man at East 52nd Street and Church Avenue. Avenue around 1.15 a.m. NYPD chief of department, Jeff Madri, says the man later identified as Christian Emile began to run off when the officers got out of their car to intervene. One of the officers discharged their taser, and the taser momentarily stunned the male. The male got back up. He still had the gun in his hand. He runs back on the sidewalk. The officers give further

commands for the mail to drop the gun, and they fired their weapons. Emile died of his wounds at a nearby hospital. Madri says another man who went to the hospital earlier this morning may have been grazed by a bullet from the gunfire. And New York City will pay $1.6 million to a man who was sexually abused while he was held at Rikers Island. This according to the news site, the city. The settlement comes in response to a lawsuit filed by the unidentified man who says a physical therapist at a facility forced him to perform sex acts during an appointment in 2019. The The 57-year-old therapist was indicted later that same year by the Bronx District Attorney and the Department of Investigation on multiple charges related to the abuse.

In 2022, he pleaded guilty to one felony count of a third-degree criminal sexual act. We'll see mostly sunny skies later on this afternoon with highs around 70 degrees, partly cloudy tonight with lows in the mid-50s. Stay close. There's more after the break. I'm Jenei Pierre. WNYC will host a debate tonight among the three candidates in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat held by Bob Menendez.

The debate will be broadcast here on WMYC at 8 p.m. The Democrats running for the seat are Congressman Andy Kim, Patricia Campos Medina, and Larry Hamm. The winner of the Democratic primary is the odds-on favorite to win the election in November because a Republican hasn't won a Senate raise in New Jersey since 1972. We're joined now by reporter Nancy Solomon, who has been covering the race and moderating the debate is a voice listeners know all too well.

Your morning edition host Michael Hill. Welcome to you both. Thank you, Janice. Thanks, Janice. Nancy, give us a thumbnail sketch of each of these candidates. The frontrunner is Andy Kim. He's from Burlington County. He was elected to the House in 2018. He came to national attention when he was photographed picking up trash in the Capitol Rotunda late at night on the January 6th riot. And then he became the giant slayer, really, this winter when he vanquished Tammy Murphy, the governor's wife, who dropped out of the race for Senate. He's the son of Korean

immigrants, and he worked in national security for the Obama White House. Patricia Campos Medina has been very active in state politics. She directs a nonprofit that helps Latino women get elected to office. And she's both a labor activist and an academic who focuses on labor. And Larry Hamm is a longtime activist from Newark, chairman of the People's Organization for Progress. He was a student activist at Princeton against South African apartheid, and he's been active in Newark ever since. All three candidates come from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to varying degrees. So the candidates probably agree on a broad range of issues, right? Michael, how are you going to handle that in the debate? We as

The editorial team have been drafting, framing questions with the goal of drawing out the issue and position differences among the candidates because they are of the same party, and I would bet they would want to differentiate themselves from the PAC. Otherwise, why run for the office? How can they say vote for me because I support or I oppose or I would fight for? If not for the issues and where the candidates stand, it might boil down to personality or popularity. One thing I expect to explore as a member of the House Andy Kim served in divided federal government for years. Our other two candidates, Larry Hamm and Patricia Compost, Medina, are outspoken activists, but influential forces in New Jersey. We may find they have very different ideas about compromise and what it takes to get things done in a challenging political environment.

Can you give us a sneak peek at some of the topics that you'll be asking about? We'll see where the discussion takes us tonight, but some of the things on my mind deal with the issues that, New Jerseyans and Americans talk about every day. In fact, some of the very topics that George Madarkey and our Community Partnerships desk team have been hearing and reporting in our series Suds and civics, people are looking for answers on affordability. They're looking for support. They're looking for solutions and understanding and leadership. So there's a lot of territory to cover. This race contributed to what has been described as a seismic shift in New Jersey politics. Now, after the governor's wife, Tammy Murphy, was endorsed by all the major different

Democratic Party leaders in the state, a coalition of activists called on candidates to reject the county line. That's a ballot system in the state that gives endorsed candidates preferential placement on the ballot. Now, Andy Kim ultimately sued 19 county clerks, and now that system will not be used. Nancy, how is the court decision affecting the race? Well, you could argue that that's why Tammy Murphy dropped out. She wouldn't say that, but she saw the writing on the wall that the court was going to decide in Kim's favor and that meant she was going to lose the advantage that she would have had. It just makes it a fairer fight, really. Kim still has the advantage that a sitting congressman has in terms of raising money and he got into the race early and ignited a fairly large following behind him

precisely because he took on that fight against the ballot. So, you know, I'd say ballot design is still playing a role in terms of giving Kim a boost among reformers and progressives. Michael, what topic are you most interested in hearing the candidate's answers? I got to say one of the big ones for me is immigration, but some of the other issues of the day are really justice. But immigration really seems to dominate so many conversations and solutions and fixes seem the most elusive from one administration to the next and one Congress to the next. So I'm really most interested in challenging these candidates.

Yeah, yeah. What about you, Nancy? What are you interested in hearing from the three candidates? You know, I think that if Patricia Campos, Medina or Larry Ham are going to close the gap that they face against Andy Kim, they've got to undermine his brand as someone who has integrity and wants to fight corruption and try to show progressives who support Kim in large numbers that he's not as progressive as they're. think he is. So it'll be interesting to hear how they go about that mission. The Democratic Senate debate in New Jersey will be held at 6 p.m. tonight at the South Orange Performing Arts Center.

The event is sold out, but you can watch it live on WMYC.org, and it will broadcast at 8 p.m. here on WM.YC. The debate is also sponsored by the ACLU of New Jersey, the League of Women Voters, and Salvation and Social Justice. Michael Hill and Nancy Solomon, have fun tonight at the debate. We're looking forward to hearing it. Thanks to you both. Thanks, Jean. Thanks. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives.

And subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.