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 .