Did Mayor Eric Adams fire a gun at his school when he was a boy and almost hit one of his friends?
That's the story seemingly told by Adams in a book he wrote and was published 15 years ago.
The beginning of chapter 8 in the book "Don't Let It Happen," written by then State Senator Eric Adams and published in 2009, details a story wherein a young Adams fired a gun at school.
The book's passage described a moment when he claimed to point a "toy gun" at his friends and pulled the trigger, only to find a real round discharge from the gun. No one was hurt, according to the story.
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"When I was a child, a friend of mine brought a gun to school…to show off to the rest of the students. This was my first time seeing a real gun. After years of playing 'Cowboys and Indians' with toy guns, I did not believe the gun he was showing us was real. I laughed at his stupid trick and grabbed the gun from him. 'If this gun is real,' I said, 'then it should go off.' I pointed what I thought was a toy gun at my group of friends and pulled the trigger. A round discharged, and only by the grace of God and my poor aim did the bullet miss my friends. The incident scared me so much that I dropped the gun and ran."
Adams' book first came to attention last week in a Byline article. Fast forward to Monday, when a reporter from the Associated Press questioned Adams about the particular chapter during an off-topic press conference at City Hall.
"I never fired a gun in school," Adams told the AP reporter.
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"I think the person who, the co-author of the book, may have misunderstood the exact—someone. There was an incident in school where someone pointed what they thought was a toy gun and they may have misunderstood—that book never got into print because we never went through the proofreading aspect of it."
A journalist from THE CITY also attending the briefing had a copy of "Don't Let It Happen" on hand. She held it up as the mayor exited the press conference, asking him to clarify his co-author remarks.
When News 4 asked for City Hall to expand on the mayor's comments, a spokesperson said Adams is looking into the book's publication.
"The story should not have been published, the mayor is looking into it. As he said, the co-author may have misunderstood the story," First Deputy Press Secretary Charles Kretchmer Lutvak wrote in an email.
The book is listed on a number of online sellers, including Amazon, where it's available for purchase for $13.62. In the online description of the book, no co-author is listed -- but the cover does indicate his partner Tracey Collins contributes a forward to the book.
