Supporters of Yusef Salaam poured cold water over people’s calls for his resignation on social media.
It comes after the New York City Councilman’s encounter with a local police officer last week.
The incident happened in Harlem on the night of Friday, Jan. 26, and was captured on the officer’s body camera. The officer is seen approaching Salaam’s car, which had a Georgia license plate, and asking him to roll down the windows. When the officer got to the driver’s window, Salaam introduced himself.
“I’m Council Member Salaam. District 9,” he said.
“Council member? Oh okay. Have a good one,” the officer responded.
Based on the footage, the officer did not explain why Salaam was pulled over, but the NYPD later confirmed that it was because of the motivational speaker’s tinted windows, which were considered “beyond legal limits.”
Police officials championed the officer for how he conducted himself throughout the encounter.
“The driver complied and identified himself as New York City Councilmember Yusef Salaam, performing official duties, at which point the officer advised him to have a good night,” the department said in a statement, adding, “This officer should be commended for his discretion appropriately so the councilmember could complete his official duties.”
Salaam, a Democrat, is also known as a member of the exonerated “Central Park Five” — a group of young men of color who were wrongfully imprisoned for raping a white woman in the late 1980s. Their harrowing journey was depicted in the critically acclaimed Netflix limited series, “When They See Us” in 2019. Salaam was elected to the NYC City Council in November to represent Harlem.
According to The Associated Press, city council member Sandy Nurder recalled being on the phone with Salaam during the traffic stop, saying that he was not given an explanation for why he was pulled over in the first place.
“This experience only amplified the importance of transparency for all police investigative stops, because the lack of transparency allows racial profiling and unconstitutional stops of all types to occur and often go underreported,” Salaam said in a statement, per the outlet.
However, some of Salaam’s peers called for him to step down from the public safety committee and accused him of using his position to avoid consequences.
“The stop was not illegal. The stop was done by the book. What is illegal is the percentage of tinting on his windows, using your Council Member title to get out of a ticket and lying about the interaction. How can we expect him to be impartial as chair of the Public Safety Committee when he did not depict an accurate accounting of the event?” Council member Joann Ariola wrote on X, also known as Twitter.
Council member Robert Holden chimed in: “This is damning: an elected official with illegal tints and out-of-state plates, not legally registered, using his official title to evade the law. Worse yet, he lied about the exchange until NYPD set the record straight. CM Salaam should resign as Public Safety Chair.”
Other colleagues, like Councilman Lincoln Rester, came to Salaam’s defense.
“This is the take of a white person who doesn’t have to worry for the safety of his family when they are pulled over by police,” Rester said referring to Holden. “I’m relieved @dr_yusefsalaam & his family are okay.”
Another user directly responded to Ariola’s claim.
“He lied about what? He said he wasn’t told why he was pulled over, and he wasn’t. How is that a lie? And how was he trying to get out of a ticket if he didn’t even know why he was being pulled over? Your argument doesn’t make sense.”
