New York, New York - New York City Mayor Eric Adams was grilled by a defense attorney who accused him of "sensationalizing" crime in a grueling radio interview.

On Friday, Adams sat down for a lengthy conversation with The Breakfast Club radio show, which quickly turned tense as another guest, lawyer and activist Olayemi Olurin, pressed him about the recent rise in police presence across the five boroughs.

As Adams attempted to argue that New Yorker's don't feel safe while traveling the city's subways, Olurin blamed him for using specific high-profile violent incidents to "fearmonger".

"I think it's your own rhetoric about the subways that has a lot to do with why people feel scared, despite the fact that millions of people ride the subway every day without incident," she argued.

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"You've added 2,000 police officers, despite the fact that you’ve acknowledged that the subways are not that dangerous," she added.

Olurin went on to argue that Adam's highlighted the recent murder of NYPD officer Jonathan Diller, which she described as "a rare occurrence," while not doing so for the seven New Yorkers that have been killed by officers so far this year.

"I’m not going to dismiss the loss of a life of an innocent person that wears a uniform," Mayor Adams responded.

"But you do the 31 people that died at Rikers," Olurin clapped back, referencing the death of inmates in recent years at NYC's most infamous prison.

New York City has been the focus of public discourse surrounding the justice system in the US, with many Republican politicians claiming large cities run by Democrats, such as NYC, are overrun with crime due to failed policies.

Adams, who has been an advocate for "tough on crime" policies since he was elected in 2022, has argued against these criticisms on multiple occasions, correctly pointing that NYC is one of the safest large cities in the country.

But at the same time, he has aggressively pushed for a higher police presence around the city, and backed state Governor Kathy Hochul's recent decision to deploy 750 members of the National Guard to help combat subway crime.

During the interview, Adams defended his policies, stating, "We have to live life the way it is, and work to make it what it ought to be."