NYC Councilman and Central Park 5 member Yusef Salaam faces calls to resign as safety committee leader after ‘lying’ about NYPD traffic stop
New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam is facing calls to step down as head of the council’s influential public safety committee after a controversial traffic stop revealed he was motoring around the Big Apple with out-of-state license plates and alleged illegally tinted windows.
Salaam is also taking heat over claims he embellished his Friday night encounter with an NYPD cop in Harlem, during which the officer pulled him over for the tinted windows but cut him a break when the lawmaker identified himself.
“This is damning,” City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) said in a post on X. “An elected official with illegal tints and out-of-state plates, not legally registered, using his official title to evade the law.
“Worse, he lied about the exchange until NYPD set the record straight,” Holden wrote. “CM Salaam should resign as Public Safety Chair.”
Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) also joined the fray online, noting that the entire episode was caught on police bodycam.
“What is sad is taking an incident where someone cuts you a break, does right by you, and then misrepresenting the truth to get them in trouble,” Borelli said in another X post.
Salaam, one of the exonerated “Central Park Five,” has not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Post recently.
However, Salaam’s office did confirm that he had Georgia license plates on his car until just this week — despite living in New York and holding office here for two years.
According to Board of Elections records, Salaam registered to vote in the state on July 27, 2022, and had 30 days after that to transfer his Georgia vehicle registration to New York under the law.
The lawmaker had those Peach State plates on his car on Friday when he was pulled over.
According to police, Salaam was pulled over shortly before 6:30 p.m. while driving a blue sedan with his family inside — with the entire encounter captured on bodycam video.
“As the video shows, throughout this interaction, the officer conducted himself professionally and respectfully,” the NYPD said in a statement over the weekend.
“He followed all proper procedures, including procedures that were put in place after Detective Russell Timoshenko was shot and killed through tinted windows in 2007.”
The bodycam footage shows the cop walking up to Salaam’s car, asking him to lower the tinted rear window, and then approaching him behind the wheel.
Salaam immediately identifies himself as a city councilman, prompting the cop to wish him a good night and walk away, the footage shows.
But the councilman later griped in a statement that the officer told him, “We’re done here” and walked away — never telling him why he had been pulled over in the first place.
According to the NYPD Patrol Guide and the city Administrative Code, police officers are not required to say why someone is being stopped on a low-level potential infraction like a tinted-window violation.
“The stop was not illegal,” Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) said on X. “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]?”
Councilmember Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn) also slammed Salaam and called for a public apology.
“What this experience amplifies is how you lied, are potentially committing insurance fraud, using the race card, as well as using your status as Councilmember to evade the law,” she railed, adding, “The officer did everything by the book, and was nothing but extra nice to you.”
Speaking on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” on Monday, Mayor Eric Adams dodged the controversy by saying that both Salaam and the unnamed officer displayed “a level of courteousness and professionalism” that should be commended.
