Brooklyn Councilman Took on the Police. Next Up: The Governor.

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It has been an eventful new year for Jumaane D. Williams, a newly re-elected Brooklyn councilman from Flatbush with an independent streak.

First he skipped out on voting for next speaker of the New York City Council. Then he was tossed over the hood of a car by a police officer during an immigration protest. Days later, he declared his interest in running for lieutenant governor — a frontal political assault on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a powerful fellow Democrat with a long memory.

If these are not the normal doings of a typical public official, that is fine with Mr. Williams, who resists the label of politician.

“Activist-elected official,” he said in describing his approach during an interview in his 17th-floor office across Broadway from City Hall. On his desk chair hung a red Colin Kaepernick jersey, signed by the activist former quarterback and dedicated “To Jumaane.” Above his desk, a picture showed Mr. Williams handcuffed during a racially charged encounter with police at the 2011 West Indian American Day Parade.

And smiling from a bookshelf was Mr. Cuomo, posing with Mr. Williams in less complicated times.

“Ha!” Mr. Williams said when asked about the photograph. “I forgot about that. We probably should have took that down.”

If the political winds blow in Mr. Williams’s favor, the governor and the councilman may be striking similar poses in the future, albeit with more strained smiles. To test the waters for a lieutenant governor run, Mr. Williams is planning to travel the state in the coming weeks.

But there are already strong headwinds. Supporters have yet to rally around his effort. Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council speaker, Corey D. Johnson, have so far declined to offer support, as has the progressive Working Families Party, which backed his early political career. Proxies for Mr. Cuomo, including one of his top advisers, have already launched attacks.

“I’ve spoken to him and I’ve told him that I’m not supporting him for the position,” said Charlie King, a former campaign adviser to Mr. Cuomo who twice ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor. Mr. King brought up Mr. Williams’s failed bid to become the City Council speaker, a race that officially ended this month.

“I told him, ‘Look, you’re going to have to address the question: Why should a million Democratic voters, who don’t know you, want you to lead the state, when 50 of your colleagues, who do know you, didn’t want you to lead their conference?’” he said.

Yet Mr. Williams’s desire for the state’s No. 2 post appears to already have had an effect. Even as the current lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul, vows to run for re-election, alternatives have been floated behind the scenes, including the Rochester mayor, Lovely Warren, who like Mr. Williams is black.

“I’m glad the governor is finally understanding the importance of diversity,” Mr. Williams said sardonically. He brushed off the concern that running against Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant during the governor’s own re-election year would jeopardize his future in politics, and contrasted his own reputation as a vocal and sometimes intransigent advocate for police reform and progressive housing policy with the sorts of positions taken in Albany.

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“I don’t think you can change your beliefs based on a political race. I think you can adjust your tactics, your strategy, but if you don’t have a core, I don’t know what you’re doing,” he said. “Often times I’ve felt from the governor’s mansion that there isn’t a core. There is, ‘What is best to achieve power?’”

Asked for comment, the governor’s office pointed to earlier remarks by a top adviser, Melissa DeRosa, who observed that 2018 is an election year and “people are going to run for things for all different reasons.”

Growing up a first-generation New Yorker whose parents immigrated from Grenada, Mr. Williams, 41, said he longed to be an actor. In theatrical roles, the symptoms of his Tourette’s syndrome — evident in normal conversation — would often dissipate completely, he said. But even before graduating from Brooklyn College, he began thinking of politics: He ran for student body president, but narrowly lost, a defeat that stuck with him.

After a time on a local community board, as a tenant organizer and as executive director of New York State Tenants and Neighbors, a tenant advocacy group, he ran for what he believed would be an open Council seat in the Flatbush area of central Brooklyn in 2009. But the rules for term limits changed, giving the Democratic incumbent a third term and a shot at re-election. Still, Mr. Williams, who has struggled to raise money, succeeded in a tight six-way race.

In his first term, Mr. Williams became one of the Council’s most prominent critics of the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactics, co-sponsoring legislation with Councilman Brad Lander that created an inspector general for the police and expanded the prohibitions on profiling. The bills passed after midnight on a summer day in 2013, each with enough votes to survive a mayoral veto. Applause greeted their passage.

For Mr. Williams, it was a signature moment and an example of the lifelong activist who sticks to principle while engaging in one of the most difficult of political tasks: shepherding contentious legislation over the vehement objections of City Hall. In the years since, crime has gone down, not up.

“He took an unpopular stance because he knew it was right,” said Joo-Hyun Kang, the director of Communities United for Police Reform, an advocacy group that pushed for the legislation.

More recently, on Jan. 11, Mr. Williams found himself again facing down the police as he and other demonstrators tried to block an ambulance carrying Ravi Ragbir, an immigrant rights leader detained by federal authorities. No stranger to civil disobedience — which, in activist jargon, he refers to as “C.D.” — Mr. Williams expressed shock and disappointment at his and others’ harsh arrests. He said he had been “flung” by officers several times.

“The type of violence that occurred there should not have occurred,” he said. At least 15 complaints have been filed with the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board over the episode, which Mr. de Blasio has said is under review.

His longtime friend, the civil rights activist Kirsten John Foy, called Mr. Williams “a fighter” and the “ideal vehicle” for expanding the role of lieutenant governor and using it for advocacy. “I think it is something the state needs,” said Mr. Foy, who was detained along with Mr. Williams by the police at the 2011 West Indian American Day Parade.

But Mr. Williams’s commitment to principles has caused him political problems, particularly as he has tried to reconcile his personal religious beliefs — he worships at St. Paul Community Baptist Church — with liberal Democratic policies on abortion and gay marriage, leaving himself open to attacks that he is too conservative on the issues. Ms. DeRosa, the secretary to Mr. Cuomo, said in a radio interview that what she had read about Mr. Williams’s views “troubles me tremendously.”

“I support marriage equality and I support a woman’s right to access safe and legal abortions. Period,” he said, tapping the table for emphasis.

But, he added: “I was honored to see them respond like that. That means that immediately they’re taking my discussion about this seriously.”