TOO MANY COPS ARE NOT MAKING ARRESTS BECAUSE THE POLITICIANS HAVE BEEN TARGETING THEM FOR YEARS NOW

The clock’s ticking on crime, Mr. Mayor 

 

Post Editorial Board

 

New York Post

May 5, 2022

 

 

Mayor Adams speaks outside of Coney Island Hospital after an officer was treated and released for a stab wound

 

New Yorkers are starting to lose faith in Mayor Eric Adams. A new Quinnipiac poll shows his approval sliding — with worries over crime driving the collapse. 

Turns out wearing an anti-gun tux at the Met Gala wasn’t the approach the public wants: 54% now disapprove of his handling of crime, up from 35% in February.  

Makes sense: The city’s worsening-by-the-day crime demands much more than splashy, empty gestures. 

Now, credit where it’s due: Adams is trying, and he has the right ideas. His recent pushes on guns, for example, take square aim at a central underlying driver of sky-high crime. 

On these he is seeing some results. Shootings were almost down 30% last month from April 2021 (though they were still nearly double the pre-pandemic level). Murders, happily, were down even bigger year-on-year: 38%. 

But major crimes were up 34.2% overall, with big increases in robberies (up almost 42%), burglaries (up 39.4%) and felony assaults (up almost 21%). 

And yes, breaking up homeless encampments will likely reduce the chances of violent street encounters in those neighborhoods. (Even if most of the evicted homeless just bed down elsewhere on the streets.) 

 

NYPD patrol Atlantic Avenue subway station following the Brooklyn subway shooting in Sunset Park on April 12

Bottom line: New Yorkers want more policing, not less. That fits with past polls revealing clear majorities in favor of changing the state’s insane bail laws and other disastrous criminal-justice “reforms” and mega-majorities favoring more cops on the subway.

New Yorkers (outside a loud and largely affluent minority) don’t like the “defund and abolish” left. And they’re sure as heck not souring on Adams for being too hard on crime. 

An Adams spokesman’s comment on the Q poll: “Reducing crime won’t happen overnight.” Fine; this mayor inherited a city mired in dysfunction. And Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature refused his request for major fixes to recent state criminal-justice “reforms.”

 

Mayor Adams and NYPD Chief Keechant Sewell congratulate the people who helped to capture Brooklyn subway shooter Frank James

But the public’s patience is wearing thin. 

Adams and his NYPD brass need to get creative (and not just when it comes to clothing). Come up with more initiatives, on top of his anti-gun units. It’d help to send an unmistakable signal that street cops have his full support if they run into trouble for doing their jobs: Too many are still hanging back, because the politicians have been targeting them for years now.  

Until the public clearly sees crime dropping, the city’s much-vaunted “recovery” will remain phantasmal as New Yorkers continue to live in fear.