Assume what you’ll about Home Judiciary chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and the listening to he held Monday on crime in New York, however make no mistake: The difficulty completely deserves consideration — and no quantity of Democratic pooh-poohing it could possibly change that.
Dems accuse Jordan of utilizing the occasion to “defend Donald Trump,” as Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan) put it, after the notoriously soft-on-crime Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg indicted the ex-prez.
They level to a current decline in metropolis homicides and evaluate homicide charges right here to that of different locations.
But murders have fallen largely due to the work of Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD, regardless of Bragg’s efforts to undermine them.
In reality, Bragg is the poster boy for radical DAs across the nation (many backed by far-left billionaire George Soros) who readily admit their objective is to maintain criminals out of jail.
Bragg campaigned on it, and in his notorious Day 1 memo he spelled out his plan to maintain defendants free to roam the streets.
The Publish has since reported case after case the place he’s reduce criminals a break: Whilst he was busy indicting Trump (on ludicrous costs), he was downgrading felony theft costs to mere misdemeanors for a profession felony, Rodney Johnson, with almost 90 busts and two stints in state jail below his belt.
Certainly, from Jan. 1, 2022, when he took workplace, via late November, Bragg knocked down 52% of felony circumstances to misdemeanors, The Publish reported. In fact that’s contributed to Gotham’s crime woes.
“You can not persuade us to not imagine our mendacity eyes,” as a result of “we see it with our eyes day in and day trip,” fumed Madeline Brame, chair of the Victims Rights Reform Council, at Dems. Her council was fashioned in honor of her son, who was slain in Harlem in 2018.
“There are a whole bunch and 1000’s of us,” Brame added. “We don’t give a rattling in regards to the politics” so long as somebody brings “civility and sanity to our metropolis.” Hear, hear.
Jose Alba, the bodega clerk Bragg did initially cost with second-degree homicide for fatally stabbing an attacker in self-defense, additionally testified.
Bragg’s not the one purpose crime right here has soared, in fact, with main felonies taking pictures up 32% final 12 months over 2019, the 12 months earlier than the pandemic. Albany’s criminal-justice reforms that 12 months additionally performed a serious position.
And, sure, different locations (particularly these run by Dems) have seen crime surge, too: Chicago was a criminal offense nightmare below outgoing Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot (and Soros-backed prosecutor Kim Foxx), and will develop even worse below pro-criminal Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson.
However New Yorkers needs to be grateful their metropolis’s crime downside has come below the nationwide highlight. The extra strain on progressives in Albany and DAs like Bragg to get more durable on crime, the secure their metropolis will probably be.
