What does it take for NY politicians to say no to gun crime?
Gun deaths for 2020 are now running at nearly twice the 2019 level, The Post reported Monday: 209 through last Wednesday vs. 109 in the same period last year. Are the politicians really going to keep hoping the violence stops on its own?
Total gunfire victims more than doubled, from 674 to 1,362. Sunday alone added seven; Monday five, and Tuesday two more. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea sees a falloff in shootings, from near 70 a week over the summer to 28 last week, and thinks cool weather is helping. Pray for early snow?
On Saturday, The Post’s Dean Balsamini flagged one reason for the surge: Witnesses are increasingly unwilling to help cops catch the perps, so only 20 percent of shootings through August ended with arrests.
You can blame state bail “reforms” that basically stripped “confidential” informants of their, well, confidentiality. The new law “royally screwed up policing,” sighs Blue Lives Matter NYC founder Sgt. Joseph Imperatrice. Informants have “little to no protection.” They know their personal info can “get out to the defense team.”
“Witnesses ask if the shooter will get their name, and they are told, ‘Probably yes,’ ” a seasoned detective tells The Post.
The scrapping of NYPD anti-crime units also hurts. Those units helped gather “intel,” notes criminal-justice prof Joseph Giacalone, an ex-NYPD sergeant. “The loss of that intel will be resounding.”
Meanwhile, the “anti-snitch culture” is growing, as the Black Lives Matter movement and the high-profile deaths of George Floyd and others at the hands of cops further erode trust in police.
Add in the spring mass release of inmates in the name of COVID fears, as well as cops’ understandable fears of penalties in trying to thwart crimes (especially after the passage of an overly broad anti-chokehold law), and it’s easy to see why gun deaths are soaring.
What to do? Re-fund the NYPD. Boost the number of cops. Fully restore anti-crime units. Reform the bail “reforms.” Stop tying cops’ hands. The longer pols resist such steps, the more gun deaths the city will see.
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