The Daily News published a column by Harry Siegel on Saturday that rang the alarm bell about safety in the city’s subways.

Siegel incorrectly cited the number of homicides underground this year, a point that the NYPD and top brass used on the platform formerly known as Twitter to attack Siegel, even after a correction was published.

Mayor Eric Adams said the pile-on was warranted.

What You Need To Know

  • Mayor Eric Adams fully defended the NYPD's controversial social media posts on Tuesday

  • Adams said the NYPD posts were about accountability and standing up for the city's police department

  • Top brass at the police department have come under scrutiny amid attacks of a journalist who wrote a column that was critical of subway safety

“To write a story that indicates crime has gone up 150% in certain crime, it was wrong. To put things in a column that were inaccurate was wrong,” Adams said at a news briefing.

Adams said the police officials who took shots at the journalist — including Chief of Patrol John Chell and Chief of Transit Michael Kemper — were standing up for the work of the New York Police Department.

“Standing by and continuously to allow people to just take open shots at the men and women who place their lives on the line, it's just not acceptable,” Adams said.

The mayor also said that the column was ill-timed with the funeral service of slain police detective Jonathan Diller on Saturday.

“The real horrific part of it that really impacted me. That column was released [at] 5 p.m. I believe, on the day we buried an officer,” he said. “I thought that was distasteful. I thought that we didn’t take into consideration Stephanie. We didn’t take into consideration of the men and women who were mourning, who felt the rawness of that death.”

Adams said the incident was about accountability.

“The columnist shared his opinion. They shared their opinion. I think the police department, the criminal justice system, elected officials, I think all of us must be held accountable for our actions,” he said.

Meanwhile, Adams said his plan to use police officers in the subway to deal with mental health issues needs improvement.

The mayor was in the subway system Monday night surveying his subway safety efforts, including placing additional police officers in the system.

“I saw that yesterday, that if the person had no shoes on or they were sitting down, clearly they needed help. The officers were not willing to engage,” he said.