New York
The Big Bagel is getting so bad that even the baddies are demanding the fuzz do something. As the body count rises, it is obvious that the victims of violence are predominantly the poor and minorities. Last week, a woman killed in a drive-by shooting had been attending a vigil for a friend who was shot dead after someone stepped on the gunman’s shoe. A man slashed on a Manhattan subway platform had recently been paroled for an attack on a Jewish woman and her mother. Brazen gunslingers are shooting the living daylights out of each other in the Bagel, and there was a shooting spree in the middle of Times Square that left three innocents, including a four-year-old girl, among the victims.
And yet, up here where I live, it could be Giuliani time, when crime disappeared and the numbers plunged as never before. One hears and reads about the daily gunplay, and compares the statistics with those of 25 years ago. Robbery in April was up close to 30 per cent compared with last year, grand larceny 66 per cent and shootings 166.1 per cent. Murder this year is up 32 per cent from 2019. One wonders when the useless mayor will declare an emergency as the place is starting to resemble a war zone.
Since the Covid crisis, more and more New Yorkers believe the city to be ungovernable and unlivable. Still, two of the numerous candidates running for mayor rant in their speeches about defunding the police. Violent criminals no longer have any fears, according to Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association, and having done away with bail for many crimes, criminals get booked and walk, free to continue shooting and robbing people.
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