Jozette Carter-Williams, the widow of slain Officer Gerard Carter, is running for City Council in Staten Island.
Carter-Williams will be running against Councilmember Kamillah Hanks, who is in her first term representing the North Shore of Staten Island district, stretching from Arlington to Tompkinsville.
Shatiek Johnson, a teenager at the time, was charged with the 1998 killing. He fired at the cop while he sat in a marked police van outside the West Brighton Houses on Staten Island, striking Carter in the head. He was in critical condition for several days before eventually perishing due to his injuries.
When Johnson was up for parole in 2023, Carter-Williams advocated for the killer to stay behind bars.
She and Carter were divorced but “best friends” at the time of his killing. In the wake of his death, she started a non–profit organization in his name.
Carter-Williams said in an interview she will run on a platform of public safety and quality of life issues, and hopes to “do something in that capacity where the police are being trusted again.”
“Things have gotten a lot worse,” the longtime Staten Island resident said, adding that she hears of people having trouble contacting local representatives, including Hanks.
She said she was motivated to run seeing the “quality of life was gone down” amid “the uptick of crime that is happening in the area,” and is optimistic about the campaign, having received around $10,000 in donations already.
A spokesman for Hanks, a moderate Democrat, said he is confident constituents will support her in her run for re-election.
“[Hanks] continues to be the moderate, sensible voice our community needs in an often chaotic political landscape,” Michael Arvanites, a spokesperson for Hanks, said in a statement. “This Council seat was earned through hard work, credible accomplishments, and genuine engagement with the diverse residents of the North Shore. Her many years of activism before being elected built the trust of our neighbors, who believed in her ability to tackle the issues that matter.”