Impunity in New York City Punch a cop more than a dozen times, get released without bail.
Crime will continue to proliferate in New York as long as criminals know they’ll face few consequences.
‘Am I allowed to press charges?” That’s what the 16-year-old who allegedly assaulted a police officer asked the judge Tuesday. Welcome to New York, where criminals have learned they can get away with serial offenses.
The teen reportedly jumped an East Harlem subway turnstile on Saturday, then began mouthing off to the cops who approached him. Video shows him punching an officer in the head more than a dozen times. He was later released without bail and sent to a non-secure detention facility in Queens, where he is subject to a 6 p.m. curfew and monitoring.
One month earlier the same teenager, then 15, allegedly “jumped a 49-year-old man on a Midtown street, punching the victim and running off with his cell phone,” according to the New York Post. He was freed without bail days before the alleged assault on the cop. The New York Unified Court System shows the teen pleaded not guilty.
The Post reports that the same teen was arrested in April “after allegedly being found in a car with a loaded gun and a crossbow in Brooklyn.” A lawyer for the teen could not be reached by deadline.
Saturday’s incident caught the attention of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who criticized what he described as a “catch, release, repeat” approach to crime. “When I say we’re the laughingstock of the country, this is what I’m talking about,” he said. “How do we keep our city safe when the other parts of the criminal justice system, they have abandoned our public safety apparatus?”
Good question. As of this week in New York City, robberies are up 39.6%, felony assaults are up 19%, and transit crimes are up 53% over the same period last year. The mayor and police department can’t address this problem on their own.
In 2019 New York lawmakers barred judges from imposing bail on more than 350 offenses, including criminally negligent homicide, stalking, arson, grand larceny and many drug offenses. Amid backlash over a crime surge, lawmakers increased the number of cases eligible for bail. But the law needs an overhaul, not tinkering.
Progressive prosecutors have also enabled the lawlessness. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is notoriously lenient, and his spokeswoman Emily Tuttle defended the teen’s release after the alleged robbery: “Our system must respond to children as children, and intensive community monitoring was the appropriate pre-trial determination for a fifteen-year-old child with no previous arrests.” The earlier case in Brooklyn was sealed, so Mr. Bragg was not aware of it, she added.
Comments are closed.
