A spike in crimes committed by teenagers in New York City can be directly blamed on state and citywide policies that are leaving the police without any support for their role in enforcing the law, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik told Newsmax on Sunday.
"You have a district attorney that's not prosecuting anyone," Kerik said on Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "He's letting people go. You have a governor that has these bill reform laws in place…the cops lock somebody up, the suspect is back on the streets before the cop is actually out of the precinct station house."
And then, there is a City Council that is "calling for the defunding of police, and taking away their immunities, and you're not going to have a lot of proactive policing," he added. "You're not going to have cops that want to go out and do the job they're supposed to do, and they're not getting the support they need from the DA and the governor, so you're going to see substantial increases like this."
Kerik's comments came in response to a New York Post report revealing that the city has seen an 80% increase in the number of minors arrested for robbery and a 23% increase in youth arrests for felony assaults since January.
Further, 816 teens across the city's five boroughs have been arrested for robbery so far this year, compared to 451 during the same period last year, the report said.
"The same thing is going on in all these cities that are run by Democrats, whether it's Chicago. Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Baltimore, St. Louis," said Kerik. "I can name a ton of them. They're all seeing the same trends."
Meanwhile, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has launched more than 30 neighborhood "peacekeepers" who are specially trained to prevent violence and assist in conflict resolution and crisis support, but Kerik said he questions making that move rather than bolstering the Chicago Police Department.
"Sending a bunch of civilians who have never dealt with violent crime, sending them out in public with yellow vests on like they're Superman, that's not going to help anyone," said Kerik. "You have to deal with violence through law enforcement. You have to have cops out there that know how to deal with it and know how to respond to it."
Instead, the peacekeepers are heading into a dangerous situation, Kerik said, adding that he expects some of them to be hurt or killed when they try to attempt to de-escalate a situation and if that happens, it will be Pritzker's fault.
Meanwhile, Chicago's new Mayor Brandon Johnson has laid out his plan for safety this holiday weekend, noting that the business community is invested in the plan to secure the city, but Kerik said he doesn't think that will have any effect.
"Nobody wants to live, visit, work, [and] go to school in a place where they're not safe," he said. "Nobody wants to start a new business in a place where they have to worry about random gunfire and gangs shooting up the streets…he's basically ignoring the fact that a number of the businesses in Chicago are leaving because nobody feels safe there," said Kerik. "He needs to take the cops, give them the tools they need to do the job, put them out in the streets and say, go clean it up just like [Rudy] Giuliani did. In New York City in 1993, which turned into the most substantial reduction in violent crime and murder in U. S history."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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