NO BAIL REFORM A BLESSING FOR CAREER CRIMINALS

New York’s bail laws keep putting criminals back out on the street 

 

By Post Editorial Board

April 21, 2021 

 

                                      Bail reformer Cuomo

 

New York’s “no bail” reforms keep producing rank injustice — and making the city markedly less safe.

Judge Denise Johnson just cut loose reputed gang member Takim Newson, 32, who had more than 20 priors and stands charged with attempted murder and related crimes. He allegedly shot a 43-year-old man in the groin while trying to steal a cellphone at a bar in Jamaica early on Feb. 14. He served a 3½-year prison sentence for an armed robbery in Nassau County before being paroled in 2011, according to the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision Web site.

Despite his long history of crime, Johnson ordered him released without bail pending another court appearance June 9. Said one outraged cop: “How can this be normal? Is this what criminal-justice reform is supposed to look like?”

Yet it’s the new normal in New York.

Ricardo Hernandez faces three hate-crime charges after allegedly trying to shove an Asian undercover cop onto Queens subway tracks. He was released Sunday as Justice Louis Nock explained, “My hands are tied because under the new bail rules, I have absolutely no authority or power to set bail on this defendant for this alleged offense.” That is indeed the law: no injury, no bail. 

And so much for the left’s rhetoric about the new menace of anti-Asian hate.

Also walking free is city teacher Mikael Bucknavage, 23, who cops arrested during an anti-police riot last Wednesday. Police say that the group smashed windows and spray-painted cars and buildings with graffiti such as “Kill cops” and “F—k the cops” and that Bucknavage was caught clutching a can of spray paint and defacing a building — and that he assaulted the cop who moved in to arrest him, opening a gash in the officer’s forehead.

He’s charged with first-degree riot, second-degree assault and resisting arrest. And this follows a prior arrest for allegedly shoving a cop at a protest last year; he avoided jail then by vowing to stay out of trouble for six months — which he plainly didn’t. Yet Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Anne Thompson even refused a prosecution request to place Bucknavage under supervision because of that conditional discharge.

New York City is seeing a major jump in crime, with murders nearly double the 2018 level and other major offenses such as rape and felonious assault also soaring.

If only our criminal-justice system could stop putting the bad guys back out on the street.