District Attorney-elect Ray Tierney flipped the Suffolk County seat in Long Island, New York, from blue to red Tuesday by campaigning on law and order.
By highlighting the radical left’s soft crime enforcement, Tierney won over a purple county by nearly 15 percent. According to summer statistics, gun violence had increased in the county by 23 percent under Democrat leadership. In August, there were an estimated 52 shootings in the county, contrasted with 42 in 2020.
“This is completely unacceptable and it is still shocking to me how anyone can be given the responsibility of keeping people safe and not following through on that responsibility,” Tierney told Breitbart News about the gun violence statistics. “It is important to recognize that this is not a partisan issue – safety is people’s number one concern.”
“It is a basic need, and this election cycle, there was a realization that our current elected officials are not addressing crime rates effectively; far from it – they have made it so much worse,” Tierney continued. “Long Islanders deserve to feel safe in their communities.”
As a district attorney, Tierney will be responsible for whether criminal charges are brought to court and the lengths to which criminals are prosecuted. The position is an important one, as reflected by George Soros’s effort to elect district attorneys who are soft on crime and have a desire to fundamentally alter the bail system for the worst.
“I think that over the past few years, we have witnessed a shocking and completely unacceptable degree of incompetence and failure in the District Attorney’s office, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that my work is the exact opposite of that,” Tierney said, noting that “bail reform has completely wiped out any sentiment of safety across the whole state.”
In 2019, the New York Legislature passed presumably the most radical “bail reform” legislation in the nation. The package canceled bail for nonviolent crimes and misdemeanors. But then the New York Police Department in January of 2020 released figures that indicated that “bail reform” caused an increase in crime. Parts of the legislation were rescinded in April of 2020 due to the findings.
Just up the road from New York City, Tierney will face challenges in Suffolk County upon taking office in January. Some of his first priorities will be to establish a central gang bureau, fight those who are aiding the opioid epidemic, and reduce violent crime of any type.
“We are getting to work on Day 1. We had a huge victory on Election Day, but this is only the beginning. The fight is not over,” Tierney told Breitbart News. “We cannot get complacent. There is so much work to be done and we will do it.”
Tierney has been a resident of Suffolk County his whole life. He told Breitbart News his whole family is still living in the country, including his children. “What I want for my family is the same thing that each and every resident of Suffolk County wants: to have a high quality of life, which predominantly means being safe.”
“This is what I was elected to do and I will deliver on it, no excuses,” he said.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø
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