Shootings jumped nearly 30 percent in January, along with spikes in four more of the NYPD’s seven “major crime” categories, for an overall 17 percent rise. Subway crime’s up nearly a third, too.
Yet Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie wants New Yorkers to give his no-bail reforms more time to work. Sorry, Mr. Speaker: “More time” means “more victims.”
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea is making no bones about it: The rise in auto thefts (up 70 percent), burglaries, grand larcenies and felony assaults are the direct result of the new bail rules.
Reformers say the vast majority of accused will still show for court. But that’s irrelevant: The new rules free hard-core crooks to keep on breaking the law.
With the courts unable to lock up serial offenders who pose a clear threat to public safety, serious criminals know they face no immediate consequences for their acts. And it’s an open invitation for those who aren’t hard-core crooks to take up a life of crime.
On Tuesday, Shea told reporters that re-arrests are up, thanks to the new revolving door. “The word is out, they know that no matter what they are back on the street after arraignment,” a police source told The Post.
Suburban Democrats led by Jay Jacobs, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handpicked head of the state Democratic Party, are warning that lawmakers running for re-election risk defeat. “It’s going to be a problem if there are no changes to the law. More Democratic seats will be put at risk,” Jacobs told The Post.
But Heastie is blaming … law enforcement. “I want judges, DAs, the police departments, sheriffs to work with the Legislature to try to make the law work,” the speaker told reporters.
Huh? The Legislature literally ignored judges, DAs, police and sheriffs when it wrote the law. It only spoke with defense attorneys and far-left “advocates.”
It’s past time for lawmakers to work with law enforcement to fix this mess, or crime will keep going up.