New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul's subway bag checks continue to make headlines as she has banned the National Guard from carrying rifles while in the subway system.
Hochul was forced to introduce a controversial security measure at New York City subways amid a spate of violent crime, hoping to keep weapons off the underground transportation system, but she is restricting the 750 National Guard troops from being armed with long guns against the potentially violent criminals, the Daily Mail reported Monday.
The guards were making the subway system look like a "war zone," critics noted, leading to Hochul's restrictions, according to the Daily Mail.
Former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik said the Democrat governor's moves invade the privacy of law-abiding citizens, give the criminals another pass, and further extend anti-policing policies that have led to the crime wave in the first place.
"This is all a farce!" Kerik tweeted. "You're going to harass law-abiding citizens, and the thugs carrying a 40 cal, or 9 mm, walk right by you because they're not carrying a bag!
"Stop the theater! Repeal or eliminate bail reform, lock up the thugs, and sentence to the max. The NYPD knows their job! Give them the tools and laws they need to do the job and we wouldn't have this problem!"
Democrats are making bad moves to overcome their other bad moves, when they could have just followed the playbook laid out before by conservatives. Kerik continued.
"This isn't brain surgery," his post continued. "We've done this before, and we did it better than anyone in the country. It can be done with the right leadership! Crime is up in New York, because the governor is scared to death to pi** off the radical left, endangering communities and endangering our cops!"
Hochul and current New York City Mayor Eric Adams instituted bag checks after a 13% spike in violent subway crime, and 2023 having the most subway assaults since 1996, according to the report.
"We stand ready to assist Local 100 as they confront this plague of violence — and transit executives who are either inept or indifferent to the harm inflicted on their own employees day and night," Transit Workers Union President John Samuelsen said.
"On workplace safety, the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] has been an abysmal failure. Assaults against transit workers in the subway increased nearly 60% last year."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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