Even De Blasio Admits Liberals' Bail Reform Law Linked to Increased NYC Crime
New York was dubbed the safest big city in the world for many years, but a recent surge in crime threatens to change that.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, under the leadership of Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his successor, Michael Bloomberg, the city had a tough stance on crime, and it paid dividends.
Things changed when progressive Bill de Blasio was elected mayor.
But now even de Blasio has had to admit that a left-wing policy is causing a spike in crime.
As of Jan. 1, the city implemented a law that allows many criminals to go free with no bail after their arrest.
De Blasio conceded in an interview with WNYC-FM’s Brian Lehrer that the new law has fostered a new era of crime in the city.
“We had, for six years, steady decreases in crime across the board. There’s not a whole lot of other environmental things that have changed recently,” he said, according to the New York Post.
“It sort of stands out like a sore thumb that this is the single biggest new thing in the equation and we saw an extraordinary jump,” the mayor said.
The Post said CompStat data showed that crime has skyrocketed since the bail law took effect.
“Of course there’s always a possibility this is plain statistical variation, that happens sometimes,” the mayor said.
“But I think it’s pretty clear that there’s only one new major piece in the equation,” he told Lehrer.
De Blasio has backed giving judges the discretion to hold some defendants while they await trial if they are believed to be a danger.
That is something the sponsor of the bail law, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, is against, the Post reported.
“I think judicial discretion should be clarified so that there are very clear checks and balances, so that we avoid any inkling of bias entering into the process, but I think a system predicated only on the question of flight risk misses the fact that there are some individuals who are just consistently, by their own actions, and by the proof of due process, consistently creat[ing] a threat to their neighbors,” de Blasio said.
The mayor has previously avoided answering questions about the increases in felony assaults, grand larcenies and burglaries since the law’s implementation. But he is no longer running from the obvious truth.
“We saw things emanating from this law starting [to] take effect months ago and obviously now it’s in full effect. But the bottom line is, one, we’ve been 100 percent clear and we are unified on what we feel. Two, we want to act on this productively,” he said.
“We’re in dialogue with leaders in Albany about those concerns, and we want to move forward. In the meantime, this police force can handle anything thrown at them,” de Blasio said.
In one recent case, a woman, Tiffany Harris, who allegedly committed an anti-Semitic attack by slapping three Orthodox Jewish women was released with no bail and punched a woman the next day. And all of that came after two previous arrests that same week in assault cases.
In another case, a three-time convicted bank robber, Christopher Seamans, was released with no bail after being accused of doing a fourth bank job.
In still another, six men — Jaslin Baldera, Livo Valdez, Frandi Ledema, Frederick Baldera, Parfraimy Antonio and Diego Tejada — were let out of jail with no bail after being accused of having $7 million of fentanyl.
And then there is the case of Jordan Randolph, who police say is responsible for the death of another man because he was driving drunk.
According to officers, Randolph attempted to flee the scene before being arrested, showing he is both a danger and a flight risk, but he too was let go with no bail.
Between this new law and its sanctuary policy, New York is about to become the safest big city in the world, all right — the safest, that is, for illegal aliens and criminals.
These are the insane policies that progressives want to have in effect nationwide.
Is it any wonder that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont wants convicts to be able to vote from their prison cells? Democrats would win the criminal vote in a landslide.
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