The fallacy of a tribute: Mayor Adams and the allegedly fake picture

On September 22, 1987, Officer Robert Venable took his last breath.

Venable was shot and killed in the line of duty as he and five other officers attempted to arrest two heavily armed men at an abandoned building in Brooklyn.

Now, Venable is being used as a prop by New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

“I still think about Robert,” Adams told the cameras, “I keep a picture of Robert in my wallet.”

Adams has even pulled out the vintage looking photo for cameras, saying Robert was one of his closest friends.

However, according to sources within the mayor’s office — the photo has not actually been kept for decades in Eric Adams' wallet as he tried to suggest.

Aides have told the New York Times that the photo was actually printed off of Google last year and was stained with coffee in order to make it appear old.

“Why not just say this is a picture of him? You don’t have to stain it brown to make it seem like this was a picture from the 1980s that you’ve just carried around this whole time,” Sara Gonzales comments.

The New York City Hall released a statement in response to the New York Times article, writing, “It is disgusting that The New York Times has chosen to have Robert Venable’s friends and family relive the tragic murder of a loved one for nothing more than feeding its obsession with dissecting every single moment of Mayor Adams’ life as the paper continues its unsuccessful campaign to paint the mayor as a liar.”

Gonzales reads the statement and scoffs, “but he did lie.”

“You gotta be a certain type of individual to lie about something like that,” Eric July says, adding, “I don’t understand it. I’m not sure what the angle is there.”

“It speaks of some sort of a character flaw, for sure,” Jaco Booyens comments. “How insecure are you, truly,” he continues, “you think that buys you favor? A coffee stain? Oh — the age of the picture buys you validity?”

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