Mayor Eric Adams slammed civilians who film police officers arresting perpetrators at a close distance, warning they’re creating a “dangerous environment” and making the jobs of law enforcement even harder. 

“Stop being on top of my police officers while they’re carrying out their jobs,” Adms sternly warned.

“That is not acceptable and it won’t be tolerated. That is a very dangerous environment you are creating when you’re on top of that officer who has an understanding of what he’s doing at the time, yelling ‘police brutality.’ Yelling at the officer, calling them names. Now, he has to worry about who’s behind him,” said the mayor. 

“If an officer is on the ground wrestling with someone that has a gun, they should not have to worry about someone standing over them with a camera while they’re wrestling with someone,” Adams said Wednesday in College Point, Queens, ahead of a police academy training session for the NYPD’s revamped anti-gun units. 

He said although video recordings can be helpful in analyzing a situation, there’ve been far too many incidents where individuals filming at close quarters endanger themselves and the arrest taking place. 

“Not acceptable. It’s not going to continue to happen,” he said.

The City Council bill protecting a citizen’s right to film police officers says it must be done at a safe distance, however, it does not specify what that entails, leaving it up to cops on the scene to decide.

The impassioned plea came Wednesday during a press conference detailing the rollout of the NYPD’s new Neighborhood Safety Teams, a key part of Adams’ plan to get guns off the streets.

The new anti-gun teams, which replaced the controversial plainclothes anti-crime teams that were disbanded two years ago, hit the streets in its initial phase Monday after a slight delay.

The teams of five cops and a sergeant supervisor were deployed to the patrol areas most impacted by gun violence in 2021.

Police officials reiterated Wednesday that the units will learn from the errors of the anti-crime teams and have consulted with the communities to tailor the policing strategies to their neighborhoods, as The Post reported Friday.

Chief of Department Ken Corey could not say how many cops from the previous anti-crime unit were assigned to the new Neighborhood Safety Teams but doubled down on the vetting process, which was previously reported by The Post in January.

The officers in these units will also be clearly marked as police, unlike the previous teams, addressing a complaint from residents and police reformers who have said undercover cops going after trigger pullers led to increased shootings.

“There was a mindset that if there was a crime problem in a particular precinct or zip code, then everyone in that area was classified as being a criminal, particularly if it were a young person or a male of color and so we were stopping [and] frisking everyone … just a wide net, ” Adams said.

“We’re not doing that now.”

The teams will patrol in unmarked cop cars, which will eventually all be equipped with dashboard cameras.

Officers will also wear body cameras to capture each incident.

Corey said the NYPD will review all of the videos when force was not used but did not elaborate on how it will choose to review others.

“We must merge focused intelligence-based policing with thorough and clear community engagement and with the rollout of our neighborhood safety teams and commands across the city, we are doing exactly that,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at the NYPD Police Academy during the press conference.