AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Abbott
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After a surge in crime throughout 2021, former police chief Eric Adams was swept into the New York City mayor’s office last November on promises to end the epidemic of violence plaguing the city’s streets. But so far in 2022, the results of those efforts have been mixed at best; although murders are down 11% compared to the same time period last year, shootings are up nearly 10%, robberies are up a whopping 48%, and overall crime is up 44%. Mayor Adams has identified New York’s progressive “bail reform” laws as one cause for the continuing crime wave – but legislators in Albany and City Hall have shown no signs of reversing course.
Adams highlighted the truly devastating effect of New York’s decision to effectively end cash bail back in 2019 during an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation earlier this month. According to NYPD police data, almost 70% of the more than 100 arrests made by the city’s new anti-gun unit have prior violent offenses – and almost two thirds of those arrested for illegal possession of a firearm had a prior conviction as well. The most recent example of this was the New York City subway shooting that occurred last week, in which the perpetrator had multiple prior arrests for violent crimes, but was repeatedly let go thanks to progressive criminal justice “reforms.”
These numbers beg the question of why so many dangerous felons were allowed back onto the streets, and what can be done to prevent these individuals from continuing to terrorize the country’s largest city.
Since assuming office earlier this year, Adams has taken at least some action to address the issue. After the NYPD’s plainclothes unit was disbanded in 2020, Adams established a revamped version of the program called “Neighborhood Safety Teams” (NST). While the NST has a specific mission of getting illegal guns off the streets, the unit also has a broader goal of becoming ingrained in communities and deterring crime before it occurs.
Unsurprisingly, Adams’s decision was met with severe backlash from Defund the Police advocates and progressive criminal justice “reform” activists. Soon after Adams released his strategy to combat crime last November, a New York Black Lives Matter movement leader threatened that if Adams went ahead with his plans, “There will be riots. There will be fire, and there will be bloodshed.”
Nonetheless, Adams did plow forward, and has often appeared following shooting incidents like the tragic death of a 12-year-old boy earlier this month to reiterate the need to be tougher on crime. But critics say rhetoric alone isn’t enough, as is evidenced by crime numbers continuing to rise – something which even Adams himself seems to agree with.
In an interview with ABC News earlier this week, Adams explicitly blamed woke progressives for the city’s crime problem, saying that we “can’t rebuild that trust [with communities] by allowing those who are dangerous and that have a repeated history of violence to continue to be on our streets” – a clear rebuke of the state’s bail reform laws. Adams also agreed with former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton’s statements that progressive policies had led to an increase in crime in Democrat-run cities.
To be sure, Adams isn’t getting much help from City Hall or the state government. Adams described one incident to illustrate this fact, in which NST officers arrested 20-year-old gang member David Echevarria for illegal possession of a firearm. This was Echevarria’s third gun-related arrest in less than a year, in addition to an attempted murder charge from 2020, a robbery that involved him stabbing a victim in 2019, and a carjacking at gunpoint in 2018. Each time, Echevarria was released back onto the street thanks to New York’s soft-on-crime policies. “This is what we are fighting against,” Adams said of Echevarria, calling him the “poster child” for the problems NYPD is facing. “That’s what this battle is about. We’re going to continue to take the guns off the street, but we need help.”
But it looks as if Adams can’t expect help from many other elected Democrats in the state anytime soon. Last year, the City Council actually voted to make it easier to sue individual cops for actions taken while on the job, targeting law enforcement instead of criminals. Democratic lawmakers in Albany have also rebuffed Adams’s pleas for changes to New York’s bail reform laws, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul in January rejected calls to allow judges to detain pre-trial suspects deemed dangerous behind bars.
As outrage over rising crime continues to mount, so too will the pressure on lawmakers to enact changes. But given their stubborn refusal thus far to do anything about a crisis they created, it may be that the progressives who run New York are already too committed to their twisted vision of “reform” to correct course. If that is indeed the case, they may have a rude awakening at the ballot box next time they have to face the voters whose lives they have so needlessly endangered.
Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with over a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.
Not sure where the author comes to the conclusion that the results in NYC are “mixed at best”. Under Adams, virtually nothing has improved, and crime continues to escalate. All that has changed is the Democrat Mayor making excuses for bad Democrat policies resulting in higher crime statistics has changed from Comrade Bill de Blasio to Eric Adams. So it would be nice if the author’s of some of these articles would actually drop the sugar-coating of reality and just write about the hard facts. It’s OK to say nothing has changed or nothing has improved under the new Democrat administration that is still 100 percent behind all the old policies of the previous administration. Almost everyone reading these articles here is a big boy and big girl and can handle reading the truth. We all get enough politically correct pablum from the MSM, so we don’t need an additional dose here.
???? Really Dems kill more lives & bye bye tourism
If New York continues on the present course, we have to pray the rest of the country continues to move in the other direction. In this scenario, we wind up with 2 Americas–not just as we have now but even more brightly obvious as in black & white.
The ultimate motive here is not what they claim. The true motive is to create more crime, more shootings specifically to get folks to the point where everybody agrees to take the weapons off the streets which would not be a bad thing, but that’s not where they will stop. Along with those street weapons will be every gun in every home that is being used to protect that home from the criminals they keep letting loose. In the end all of the guns will be gone which will give them ultimate control to do whatever they want to whoever they want. This country is being scammed right now by some other most ruthless creatures on the planet.
The Dems WILL be held accountable in November. Even in this moronic liberal state, people have had enough of their stupidity! It’s costing lives and they just don’t seem to care.
I would like to live long enough to see black community stand up and proclaim itself free the horror on the faces of all Al Sharptons and everyone else who milked that cow for decades would be priceless to see
The Democrat Party, never any friend to this nation or its citizens, long ago morphed into The New Communist Party of the USA. As such, they have the same goals as the Communists have had for well more than a century: the destruction of this nation, the downfall of Western Civilization, and the creation of a worldwide Communist dictatorship. Sadly, they are well on their way to success.
HOPE ALL OF THE CRIME VICS ARE libs ONLY. they DESERVE IT
Its true…..you can’t fix STUPID
so they repeatedly let david echeviarra out without bail, after being arrested several times , including attempted murder, a stabbing and a carjacking? What are the january 6th people doing wrong ? SMH
Get rid of the Demon-Rats!!!! All of this is on them. They want their cake and eat it too. Wake up people, it doesn’t work that way. You defund the Police, allow repeat offenders to go back on the streets……..and belly ache when someone gets hurt or killed. It makes no sense! But then again…neither does the Demonratic party, Woke, BLM. They are a band of terrorists that think they have Carte Blanche. To kill the serpent, you must remove its head.
Just another example of the proof democrats are not capable of learning. They get some silly idea in their head and it just gets stuck there. There are no facts or results that can make them decide the idea was a bad one.
Then they double down by pretenting they are showing virtue and morality by sticking up for the idea that was stupid to start with.
It is like having all these little religious beliefs that are prove wrong but are part of a larger religious belief and must be defended
Common sense tells logical people that serious crimes must be punished as soon as possible. Otherwise, the criminals will just keep on victimizing and killing innocent, law-abiding people. It takes a certain type of evil and/or foolishness to think that criminals will just start self-monitoring their own destructive behaviors, and stop taking advantage of those less violent. Words can’t approach how unjust and dysfunctional the current bail systems are in states like New York and California. Many of the social justice system proponents are in actuality pro-criminal, at the expense of ruining the lives of decent, peaceful humans. Therefore, many progressive law enforcers are in reality, brutal criminals themselves.
It’s part of the plan to make crime so bad that people will call for gun control who will buy more guns and demand CRIME control. This idea came to during the BLM insurrections. Autonomous zones meet the requirements because they establish a government in those areas and the definition is replacing a government and does not specify what level of government.
So when will people figure it out that you need actual people with a brain and experience in these key positions that can solve the problems? This ridiculous exercise of putting these inexperienced woke people in job to make the limousine liberals feel good about themselves is a disaster. Bring back stop and frisk, end bail reform and apply equal justice. Unfortunately, it’s going to have to get a lot worse until people get their head out of where the sun doesn’t shine.
Hmmm. It seems punishment for crimes in New York don’t deter reoccurrences of violent crime. Who coulda guessed that??? Certainly not liberal DumbocRats. Crime punishment is intended at the least to have a definite effect of discouraging repeat offenders. Maybe the punishment is not strong enough for the offenders to decide not to offend in the future?? Three-time losers convict with violent crimes using weaponry of any sort (guns, knives, axes, sticks, etc) or crimes of physical violence threatened or implemented go to Hard Time jail only enough food to insure healthy survival. It does not seem that some members of society can live or function in society, but that doesn’t mean they have to be tolerated and their crimes tolerated. There is no sure-fire answer to the problem, but it sure seems like what is being done doesn’t work … and I’m not naive enough to believe softer approach is the answer.
Dems are like farm dogs who develop a taste for chicken. They will never willingly go back to table scraps. Dems arent going to settle for a seat at the table. They demand the right to our grandkids yet many conservatives persist in thinking ‘this too shall pass’. Well, it might, eventually , but not before they expose your grandchildren to hideous perversions.
All this sounds progressive to me. Progressing right into the crapper but let the NY’ers do what they want. Doesn’t affect me in any way.
There is one benefit to the massive stupidity of demonRat Commies. Eventually it will eliminate them.
Go NY!!
Kill, steal, and destroy. These words were spoken by Jesus to characterize that dark prince, Satan, the archenemy of all that is good. Based on how the Democrats act, and the policies they advance, I can easily see who their Father is.
I’d really want to visit NYC, especially after just reading about the 37 year old guy who smeared a bag of feces on a woman quietly sitting on a bench. He was arrested and released probably before all the paperwork was done. A couple days later he was “arrested” (if I understand the story correctly) for harassing another gentleman, released and went on to be arrested for criminal mischief and harassment yet again. Oh, by the way, this one-man “Welcome to NYC” has 44 prior arrests, one felony conviction and 10 misdemeanor convictions.
Eric Adams was never a police chief. He was a Captain. He has been described as “Al Sharpton” in a uniform. He is not up to the job.