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Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams said Thursday he would use federal stimulus money to hire more NYPD officers, in a shift from earlier remarks when he said he’d focus on moving civilian cops off desk duty.

“We should utilize the money to stabilize crime in the city,” Adams said at a Manhattan press conference, the New York Post reports.

After a White House meeting Monday, Adams rejected President Biden’s plan that cities should use COVID money for law enforcement. Adams said Monday, “The first thing we need to do is to do an assessment of how we are using our police officers now. Far too many police officers are doing clerical duty.”

But on Thursday he said, “If that’s the way the federal government is attaching the dollar amount, I would accept it because we could put officers in those areas that are really dealing with this gun crisis we have in the city.”

Last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio cut about $1 billion from the NYPD in the wake of the movement to “defund the police.” This year the mayor restored $200 million of that money to the department.