Colbert Mocks NYC Mayor’s Botched Brooklyn Shooter Press Conference With Botched Monologue (Video)

Ross A. Lincoln
·2 min read

Thanks in part to what he called the “miracle” of no deaths among the injured survivors of Tuesday’s deadly Brooklyn subway shooting, Stephen Colbert was able to find some humor while talking about that attack during Wednesday’s episode of “The Late Show.”

And one of the funniest bits came when he poked fun at a weird technical malfunction experienced by NYC Mayor Eric Adams at the press conference announcing the shooting suspect had been arrested.

By now you know that the suspect in Tuesday’s mass shooting, a man named Frank James, was arrested on Wednesday. NYPD held a big press conference bragging about his capture, but the announcement itself was reserved for Adams. However, Adams is isolating after having tested positive for COVID-19, so he was piped in to the press conference from a closed circuit TV.

There appeared to be a communication problem between locations. After the NYPD spokesperson announced “I would like to go to the mayor, live from Gracie Mansion,” there followed an excruciating 26-second delay as video showed Adams standing and waiting for the go ahead to start speaking. During the delay, weird sounds could be heard from inside the hall where the press conference was held, which sounded like scraping or coughing. It was pretty uncomfortable.

Then, Adams said, “My fellow New Yorkers: We got him.”

Colbert rolled a clip of that whole cringeworthy moment, then said “for my reaction to that news, let’s go live to camera one.” Colbert then turned to camera one and stared at it, awkwardly, for nearly 30 seconds, while he scraped something to produce weird sounds similar to those heard during Adams’ announcement. The Colbert added, “great!”

You can watch the whole monologue, which also contains other surprisingly funny jokes considering the subject matter, at the top of the page now.

But before we go, a brief aside: Adams and NYPD sort of overstated their role in apprehending James. What actually happened is that James called the cops on himself while he was at a McDonald’s, having already left identifying documents at the scene the day before. He apparently got bored waiting for them to show up, left, and then was identified by a civilian, who pointed him out to police. But it is true police slapped the cuffs on him.