In January of 2022, two NYPD officers were shot and killed while responding to a domestic violence call.

Police officials said Officers Rivera and Mora had responded around 6:30 p.m. to a call from a woman who said her son had threatened her. When they arrived, the son, later identified by the police as Lashawn McNeil, was in a bedroom down a narrow hallway.

As Officers Rivera and Mora approached the bedroom door, Mr. McNeil, 47, emerged and began firing, officials said. Both officers were struck; Mr. McNeil was shot in the arm and the head by a third officer as he tried to leave the apartment. Mr. McNeil died on Monday of his injuries.

At the time, Mayor Adams was new on the job and told a story about his own history as a police officer:

The loss of the officers, he said, reminded him of the 1987 line-of-duty death of a friend, Officer Robert Venable.

“I still think about Robert,” Mr. Adams said at a news conference at City Hall. “I keep a picture of Robert in my wallet.”

But it turns out part of that statement wasn’t true. Mayor Adams was friendly with Officer Venable before his death, but if he ever kept a photo of him in his wallet it was no longer there. And so the mayor’s office set about making one.

The employees were instructed to create a photo of Officer Venable, according to a person familiar with the request. A picture of the officer was found on Google; it was printed in black-and-white and made to look worn as if the mayor had been carrying it for some time, including by splashing some coffee on it, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Two former City Hall aides, who asked not to be identified, said they were informed about the manipulated photo last year, not long after it was created.

Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, did not dispute that Mr. Adams had shown a photo to The Times and at the police ceremony that had been recently created by a City Hall aide.

Mr. Levy, however, insisted that Mr. Adams had carried a photo of Officer Venable for decades, and provided the names of several former transit police colleagues who said in interviews that Mr. Adams and Officer Venable had indeed been friends.

Again, other people confirm Adams really did know the officer and they were friendly before Officer Venable’s death in 1987. I’d even go so far as to say it’s entirely believable the mayor was  sincerely impacted by his death. Nevertheless, the photo thing is sketchy. It looks like it could have been downloaded from this site. Adams clearly knew the photo was a prop even if his feelings about the officer were real. Maybe he had once kept a photo of the officer but that was nearly 40 years ago. He’d have been better off admitting that photo was gone in the intervening decades than trying to score political points by recreating it and using it as a prop.

The Times spoke to officer Venable’s daughter who wasn’t offended by the deception. “All I can say is that as far as being in his wallet or not, the fact that people still think of my dad all these years later — whatever the meaning behind it — it makes me thankful that he’s not being forgotten,” she said. I’m glad she feels that way but I still think the stagecraft involved cheapens the sentiment a bit. Adams should have stuck to saying he thinks about officer Venable frequently. That would have been enough. But I guess politics turns everyone into a liar.

Speaking of which, the people who will claim to be outrageously outraged by this will mostly be doing so because they don’t like the mayor and his solid support for the police is one thing they probably don’t like about him. Still, he gave them an opening and they’ll take it.

Here’s one of the events where Mayor Adams showed the photo off at a medal ceremony held last year. I have this cued up to the moment.