CNN’s Phillip on NYPD Attack: ‘We Might’ Have Same Issue ‘Whether They Were Migrants or Not’

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “NewsNight,” host Abby Phillip discussed the recent assault on New York police officers and said that “it seems like, whether they were migrants or not, we might be facing this very same issue with anyone” regardless of their immigration status.

Phillip asked, “There are so many people now making this about — solely about the migrants. But is that really fair, when it seems like, whether they were migrants or not, we might be facing this very same issue with anyone?”

Former NYPD Sergeant and Detective and John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Felipe Rodriguez responded, “It could be. But before, the way the laws were cited, and the way they were done, an individual had to be first identified. We had — we looked and investigated if they had ties with the community, then, sometimes, bail was set. This could happen to anybody. But the fact that the migrants were able to so easily to escape and just [be] released, how do we identify these people? Obviously, when they attempted to escape again, they used another false name. So, this is normal — this is not normal behavior for individuals that are not into criminal activity, and we’ve seen it by some of the prior arrests that some of them already had.”

Phillip then asked, “But does that really have anything to do with whether or not they’re migrants? Obviously, the number of migrants in the city is an issue, but all those things that you described could have been done by American citizens.”

Rodriguez answered, “No, that’s true. We can’t really make this a migrant issue. The situation is that, right now, the way they’re living, things aren’t perfect, and sometimes people do turn to criminal activity. But, as a criminal justice system, we have to look at gang assault and the severity of these crimes. We just can’t say, everyone should be released.”

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