New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams announced his run for governor Tuesday morning, launching the ultra-progressive candidate into an increasingly crowded field that already features the sitting governor and current attorney general.

Williams, 45, a former New York City councilman who has taken the most extreme position possible on a variety of issues, said it’s time he took matters in New York State into his own hands.

“I’m usually pushing and tugging at someone who has the levers to get things done,” he said. “At some point, you have to stop looking to other folks and say, ‘I’m going to do the best I can for the people of the state.’ And for me, that’s running for governor now.”

For those who don’t know, Williams is a proud “agitator” who has been arrested too many times to count, at black-lives-matters protests, Occupy Wall Street and the Trayvon Martin protests and the ‘he’s not my president’ protests on inauguration day. He was an outspoken critic of “stop-and-frisk”, the NYPD tool used for years to reduce crime in the city.

Willams was arrested in a very public spectacle in 2018 as he protested the arrest of an immigration rights activist.

The “agitator” will face off against New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James, and most likely several others too, in his bid for the governor’s residence.

Campaign video:

.@JumaaneWilliams gets arrested while protesting against the detention of Ravi Ragbir this morning outside the Javits Federal Building in NYC #DACA #DreamAct @BuzzFeedNews @Nigrotime pic.twitter.com/unq9Z77ZBl

— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) January 11, 2018

https://twitter.com/MackyAlston/status/951495346500390912?s=20

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)