Mayor de Blasio Continues to Blame Increased Crime, Fewer Arrests on COVID

By Yehudit Garmaise

  Just two nights ago in Brooklyn, seven people were shot and one person was killed at one apartment building, another 17-year-old boy was wounded in a drive-by shooting, and early yesterday morning, a victim was morning stabbed in Boro Park.

   Brooklyn’s crime statistics are consistent with last week’s NYPD report that showed that shootings in New York City have increased by almost 95% compared to last year, while the number of arrests police have made for major crimes this year fell by 13%.

    This morning, a BoroPark24 reporter asked Mayor Bill de Blasio what kinds of specific plans he and the NYPD might have to decrease crime and increase arrests.

   As has been his recurring response to questions about crime, the mayor once again blamed “the massive dislocation of this coronavirus crisis.”

   “I keep saying it has been ‘a perfect storm’ because it is ‘a perfect storm,’” Mayor de Blasio said. “We have seen everything possible go wrong at once -- People lost their jobs, schools were closed, houses of worship were closed: you name it.”

   However, a retired NYPD police detective said this morning in the New York Post that the city’s increased lawlessness is the result of months of sometimes unchecked riots, the mayor’s NYPD budget cuts, and police reform.

   Other factors that affected increased crime have been an usually large number of police retiring this year and unusually few new recruits, as the NYPD Police Academy was closed for months. In addition, early in the pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo provided early releases for many prisoners, which NYPD Commission Dermot Shea has blamed for an increase of criminals on the street. 

    The COVID pandemic is only one small explanation for increased crime in New York City, said Pat Brosnan, the CEO, and co-founder of national security and intelligence firm Brosnan Risk Consultants.

    “It’s a convenient narrative to lay the blame on the doorstep of COVID,” Brosnan told Fox News yesterday. “Granted, COVID is a contributing factor, there is no doubt about it.

   “But riots for fun and profit, a desecrated police department in both morale and operationally, and a completely destructive and destructed rule of law relative to the adherence to it are the main drivers here: they’re the catalysts. COVID is just a first cousin that was a cause and effect.”

   “We are now fighting back, and will overcome this,” said the mayor, who said that the number of gun arrests continues to climb. “The NYPD is getting more and more guns off the street. The problem with this city and the problem with this country is that there are too many guns out there, to begin with.”

Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.