The controversy over documenting encounters with police has been a heated topic between the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams. Three Black members of the City Council sat down for an interview with NY1 criminal justice reporter Dean Meminger and spoke at length about public safety and policing in New York City.

Brooklyn Councilman Chris Banks, Manhattan Councilman Yusef Salaam and Bronx Councilman Kevin Riley each described their personal fear of being stopped by officers. The conversation comes after Adams vetoed the City Council's “How Many Stops Act,” and in return Council members overrode the mayor's veto to push the bill through.

The legislation requires NYPD officers to document information from a wider range of investigative encounters with people they stop on the street.

"I want to get clear: Black people, Black elected officials on this Council, we don't hate the police," Riley said. "We're trying to work with the police, but we're trying to make the system a better system. We can't act like Black people don't get treated differently than other people, especially Black men. Anytime there's a crime, they will put a Black man all over the media. Their face is everywhere. But anytime there's a crime for anyone else, usually that doesn't happen. We get treated far worse than anybody else."

Banks said police are needed in the city.

"In no means do we want to get rid of law enforcement,” he said. “We welcome them, but we want them to do it right."

Salaam, a member of the Central Park Five, also known as the Exonerated Five, spoke candidly about how he believes law enforcement perceived him as a child.

"I didn't choose to be a poster child of deviance, but systemically they looked at the color of my skin and judged me by it," he said of the 1989 case. "They looked at the height of me and judged me by it. They looked at my name and said, ‘He is the criminal.’"

The three councilmen said they believe discriminatory policing still happens far too often today, even with the mayor being a Black man and with many people of color running the NYPD.

For more on the conversation, watch the video above.