New York City Council Reports: “A Hellscape of Violence and Chaos,” Revisited by Rep. Holden and Ms. Malliotakis

For approximately four hours, the hearing was played out as a whirl of statistics, impressions and misimpressions, as the Republicans argued that New York was a “hellscape of violence and chaos” because of the popularity of videos on local news programs around the country. Democrats on the committee countered that things were much worse in so many other places, especially in the cities and states from which their political adversaries had come. One Republican out-of-towner proved that he had already internalized the reflexes of a certain kind of New Yorker, whether he could appreciate it or not, when he mentioned the cabdriver he had interrogated, after landing, about how much he worried about crime.

The New York Police Department, like the police departments of many other cities around the country, offers the public a weekly account of crime both citywide and by precinct, which might have obviated the need for a lot of the bickering. But then where would the drama have come from? The data shows that the city has seen a reduction in murders and shootings, compared to last year.

Is the vibe of the city more peaceful than it has ever been? Robert F. Holden, a Democrat and a City Council member representing a district in Queens — which, it ought to be noted, is not in Manhattan — and the only elected official of local government asked to testify, said that yes, it did feel more lawless. His wife was afraid of hate crime, so she couldn’t go on the subway. She is justified in this worry. In Queens, where Mr. Bragg has no jurisdiction, hate crimes have gone up, despite a 40 percent decrease in hate crimes in the city as a whole.

Nikole Malliotakis, the Republican congresswoman from Staten Island, where major crimes have increased this year, showed up about two and a half hours into the hearing to observe and offer herself to reporters. The overflow room outside the hearing was where she spoke about the dangers that reform-minded prosecutors deliver to the world. When asked whether this hearing would have been conducted had there been no Trump indictment, Ms. Malliotakis insisted it would have adding that, “This is an issue I have been pushing.”