The loss of the officers, he said, reminded him of the 1987 line-of-duty death of a friend, Officer Robert Venable. “I still think about Robert,” Mr. Adams said at a news conference at City Hall.

Mayor Eric Adams and the New York Times have gone to war over the veracity of the mayor's claims about carrying a weathered photo of his friend and fallen NYPD comrade in his wallet for decades.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams told reporters that for decades he carried in his wallet a photo of his friend, Officer Robert Venable, who died in the line of duty in 1987. When The New York Times ...