NYC NOW - September 18, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Conservatives and progressives are taking aim at the Adams administration for extending its lease of Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field to house migrants. Plus, WNYC’s Sean Carlson talks with New York City’s public advocate Jumaane Williams about his effort to get Mayor Adams to investigate allegations of sexual abuse on Rikers Island. And finally, WNYC’s Janae Pierre discusses the upcoming New York City Hot Sauce Expo with the event’s founder, Steve Seabury.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Conservatives and progressives are both taking aim at the Adams administration for extending its lease of Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field to house migrants. Christine Quinn is the president and CEO of the housing group, Gwen, and the former city council speaker. She says the site lies within a flood zone. Floyd Bennett Field is not a hotel. it is not a regulation shelter. It is an unsafe, dangerous, isolated location

that's not appropriate for migrants or anybody else to be living. Meanwhile, the Kings County Conservative Party chair, Fran Vela Maron, says she's disappointed the city renewed the lease. A spokesperson for Mayor Adams says the administration is out of good housing options for migrants. New York City's public advocate

is pressing Mayor Adam. to investigate allegations of sexual abuse on Rikers Island. At a hearing last week for the city's jail oversight board, Jumani Williams cited WMYC's reporting on more than 700 lawsuits recently filed by women who say they were sexually assaulted in city custody. My colleague Sean Carlson talked with the public advocate. For those who were not tuned into the Board of Correction hearing last week, what was the gist of that statement you made?

We wanted to make sure that we were bringing to life that sexual assaults are happening. they have been happening. There are people and staff who are accused of multiple sexual assaults that are still working in Rosie's, which is the women's prison. There was one, unfortunately, that I believe was arrested for rape outside of the prison. What's alarming the most is it doesn't even seem to be people really even investigating these allegations, which means you're just giving carte blanche to anyone that's there. And it is very certainly because, as you know, folks can't go anywhere. And their lives are literally in the hands of people who they're accusing of doing great harm to them. The mayor has repeatedly said that the allegations are decades old, but some are more recent, including at least five that allegedly occur during his administration. And the lawsuits describe a longstanding culture of abuse and impunity. Do you think that enough is being done to address those past allegations and prevent future assaults and harassment? Absolutely not.

And I will say there are, and I don't want to make light of assaults to happen to staff as well. There are assaults to happen on the corrections officer, particular women. At this point, we're talking about really the imbalance of power that is there if you're a detainee. And corrections office really run the entirety of your life. And what we've seen is that abuse has been more than used on people who really can't say anything. And when they do, nothing is happening. there are a lot of allegations that are decades old. There are newer allegations, and I suspect that the new allegations will grow as we try to make it comfortable for people to come out. And

even if allegations are older, there are people who are still working there. And so we have to show New Yorkers and the detainees themselves and the families of the detainees that we're taking their care and custody seriously. If we won't even develop a mechanism to investigate, create a task force to figure out how we do it, hire outside counsel. But you can't say that the people who are looking into it are the same people who have to police themselves. That doesn't really make any sense. And it rarely works.

It hasn't. And I don't feel that folks are protected. Would your office open an investigation? If we had the capacity to do so, we would love to. And the public advocate's office, as you may hear from other folks, is very much under-resource. That's money actually than about president, which is another conversation for another time. But what we can do, what we do do, is make sure that agencies are doing their charter mandated duties and lift up areas where they're not. This is really, I think, one where it's being reported on, I think, but it's not really bubbling up.

I mean, I can't think of a time where you'd have so many people in a concentrated area being sexually assaulted. And no one would be talking about that on headline news, except for a place that people. think a hard of side and out of mind and a population that people think anything can happen to. And we need to do something about it. It's remarkable that it could get reported on and it seems like nothing is happening about it. Past court cases have forced the city to change its practices in the jails, including its use of force policies. Now, the city could be negotiating hundreds of settlements for these sexual assault lawsuits, which could result in payouts. Do you think the city should also consider a settlement that would bolster protections against sexual abuse in jails?

I think settlements and monetary conversation is a valid way to try to see if you can get people to be whole, I guess, is it where it gets some kind of justice and some kind of recompense for what's occurred to them. It's never going to, I think, completely heal someone, but it is a step to say, hey, something happened to you. It was our fault and here's something for that. It doesn't mean much if you don't have changes so that you can prevent other folks from being assault as well. When I speak to victims very often, the number one thing they want is that this doesn't happen to other people. They want their pain acknowledged and they want to prevent it from happening for themselves again or other folks. And we're kind of dropping the ball in all of those areas. That's New York City's public advocate, Jimani Williams, talking with my colleague, Sean Carlson.

You can read more about our reporting on the sexual abuse at the Rikers Island Jail Congress. on our news website, Got the Mist. Coming up, we're getting spicy. New York City's Hot Sauce Expo returns this weekend with eating competitions and some of your favorite hot sauce brands. More on that after the break. The 11th annual New York City Hot Sauce Expo returns to the Big Apple this weekend. The event blazes into Brooklyn with the nation's top hot sauce companies, including brands featured on the talk show, Hot Ones, with host Sean Evans. Joining me to talk more about this event is Steve Seaberry, founder of the New York City Hot Sauce Expo.

Steve, tell me all about the big event happening this weekend. You know, it's a celebration of all things spicy. I call it the land of misfit toys. You know, if you love spicy foods, we have 50-plus hot sauce companies from the United States and Canada. You get free samples and you can buy what you like. We also have eating competitions, specialty cocktails, craft beers. We got amazing food vendors. We have tons of activities and you just get crazy with the hot sauce and spicy foods.

It's a good time, I promise you. Yeah. And, you know, among those activities is an eating competition. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah, we have what we call the stage of doom. So every hour on the hour we have eating competitions from like the Salatanic Burrito Challenge, the spicy pizza of hell, the chicken wings of death. Also on Sunday, we have the Guinness Book of World Records event.

Well, we're going to give 10 people 60 seconds to eat as many Carolina Reaper peppers as they humanly can. Oh, my gosh. And hopefully we'll break the world record. We just broke the world record in Portland, Oregon. So I'm hoping New York City can reclaim it. What's the record? In 60 seconds, this gentleman in Portland, Oregon ate 122.5 grams of reaper peppers. Wow.

How many actual peppers is that? You know, in this particular case, I think 24 peppers, it was awesome. Yeah. I'd like to give a little history lesson really quickly because I recently learned this. The first known hot sauce was invented by the Aztecs in 7,000 BC, and it was a simple recipe with a mixture of water and ground up chili peppers. Nothing fancy, no fancy flavors or exotic peppers there. So, you know, I'm thinking after all those centuries, what is it?

about hot sauce that just keeps us all coming back for more, yearning for that extra umph in whatever we're eating, be it pizza, wings, or whatever. You know, me personally, I just like the added kick to it. You know, when I was in a band touring, we used to eat a lot of food at, you know, 7-Eleven or Taco Ball late at night. And I always brought hot sauce just to make that food taste better. But I just like flavor profile and a little kick behind it. Yeah, I absolutely love hot sauce. I'm a southern girl. You know, Tabasco is my go-to, followed by Crystal hot sauce. Those are the classics, right?

Yeah, yeah, crystals is my all-time favorite. Okay, good company. So I'm wondering, like, what is your palate in search of when you're trying to top off that meal? You know, it depends what you're eating. Certain sauces taste better with certain proteins or vegetables or fruits and whatnot. But one thing I'd learned traveling around the country is that, Sauce makers will make sauces using their local or indigenous fruits, vegetables. So someone making a hot sauce in New York, their sauce is going to taste so much different than someone making it in California.

It's really cool how these local saucemakers will really dive into their local produce and create just magic in the bottle. It's amazing. Yeah. And you actually own a hot sauce brand of your own, right? Can you tell me about it? It's called High River sauces, and I started it, you know, I was in a band and we traveled and toured around the United States and Europe and stuff. So I always made hot sauce, and I've always was into eating hot peppers and stuff. But one day my tour manager is like, dude, you really got to sell this and put it in a bottle.

And I was like, nah, no, no, I'm not going to do that, you know. And then one day I just got sick of everyone saying it. So I said, fine, I'll do it. And then I just were like, wow, this is pretty interesting. People really dig what we're doing. And it just started snowballing down the hill. You know, now we're in close to a thousand grocery stores now. We're in 11 different countries.

Working in the music background, I put so many music festivals and concerts together. I was like, you know, we should start a hot sauce festival. And that kind of took off. And we do it in six different cities around the United States now. And we really love and have so much passion for hot sauce and the people that love hot sauce as well. It's just a big spicy family. Steve Seaberry is the founder of the New York City Hot Souse Expo happening this weekend. Check it out if you dare.

Before we go, some sports news. The New York Liberty will have home court advantage for the WMBA playoffs after being the Washington Mystics Tuesday, 87 to 71. The win has the Liberty finishing the regular season with the best record in the league. The playoffs start signs. Monday, but it's not clear yet who New York will play in the first round. The Las Vegas Aces beat them in the championship series last year. The Libs wrap up their regular season Thursday night at Barclays Center against the Atlanta Dream.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.