A weekend report says Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is fighting New York City gun crime with a “Youth Town Hall,” basketball clinics, and “unarmed civilians” on patrol, among other things.
The New York Post reports de Blasio will also be increasing police presences in Harlem, but he did not say how any aspect of his new crime fighting plan will be funded.
Former NYPD cop Eugene O’Donnell, now a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, suggested de Blasio’s plans miss the heart of the problem. He said, “I think [de Blasio] deserves to tell the city that it’s his policy that is getting people killed.”
In mid-June the NYPD’s plain clothes anti-crime unit was disbanded and on June 29, 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported de Blasio agreed to a $1 billion cut to the NYPD budget.
O’Donnell added, “He stood down anti-crime [efforts] and doesn’t want people arrested. ‘Fess up…There’s an acceptable level of death on his watch and he should admit that.”
Maria Haberfield, another John Jay professor, warned sending civilians on patrol runs the risk of turning them into shooting victims.
Shootings in NYC have been surging in past months. Breitbart News reported shootings for the week of June 29, 2020, through July 5, 2020, were three times higher than they were for the same time last year.
The Post reported 74 shootings with 101 victims between June 29, 2020 and July 5, 2020, versus “26 shootings with 33 victims during that time last year.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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