Captains Endowment Assn

Andrew Yang and Eric Adams sparred over whether Mr. Adams, once a police captain, had sought the endorsement of his former union, a fiery back-and-forth that represented the complicated role of police unions in a Democratic race dominated by conversations about police reform and public safety.On Monday, Mr. Yang received the endorsement of the Captains Endowment Association, the union that once represented Mr. Adams. When asked at the debate to explain why he was the candidate best equipped to tackle a violent rise in crime, Mr. Yang pointed to the endorsement from Mr. Adams’s old co-workers.“The people you should ask about this are Eric’s former colleagues in the police captain’s union,” Mr. Yang said. “The people who worked with him for years, who know him best. They just endorsed me.”Mr. Adams tried to dismiss the endorsement, suggesting that he hadn’t asked for it and that was the only reason Mr. Yang had received it. But Mr. Yang accused him of lying, saying that NBC had reported otherwise.“I never went in front of them,” Mr. Adams said after a beat, looking more flustered than he has in past debates. “I said, months ago, I’m not taking any of the union’s endorsements.” But Mr. Yang suggested that the head of the captains’ union had said differently.Mr. Yang has said that he thinks it is important for New York City’s mayor to have a good relationship with police. On Tuesday, he expressed openness to receiving the endorsement of the Police Benevolent Association and Sergeants Benevolent Association, the city’s two largest police unions, both of which are run mostly by white conservatives.Mr. Adams has tried to distance himself from both unions recently. At the debate, he said the captains’ union had not endorsed him because of his record of police reform.The captains, he said, remembered him as someone who “fought against the abuse of stop and frisk, who fought against heavy-handed policing, who fought against treating our young people for marijuana arrests.” More