Defending New York’s “Dark Side”: A Case Study of President Donald Trump’s Dictator’s Indictment
Committee chairman Representative Jim Jordan, from Ohio, described New York as “a city that has lost its way … here in Manhattan, the scales of justice are weighed down by politics. For the district attorney justice isn’t blind, it’s about looking for opportunities to advance a political agenda: a radical political agenda.”
There is a belief among some Republicans that New York is in the midst of a crime wave, so ask New Yorkers how concerned they are about crime, and you’ll get different answers. The city is heading back into the bad old days, according to a sense of doom. But these visions are distinctly at odds with the data. Experts say that crime rates in the city have been decreasing. There is a difference between perception and reality.
Still, is the vibe of the city more lawless than it has ever been? The only elected official of local government asked to testify was the one who represents a district in Queens, and he said that it felt more lawless. His wife afraid to take the subway because of hate crime. She is justified in her worry. Although hate crimes have fallen 40 percent citywide compared with the same period last year, in Queens, where Mr. Bragg has no jurisdiction, they have gone up.
Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican congresswoman from Staten Island, showed up about two and a half hours into the hearing to watch and offer herself to reporters. One in every 67 New Yorkers is a crime victim, she told the overflow room outside of the hearing. 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.”
Following former President Donald Trump’s indictment in New York, some Republicans accuse the Manhattan District Attorney of enabling crime in the city. The committee held a hearing in Manhattan about the city’s crime issue.
The committee heard testimony from survivors and family members of victims of crimes throughout the city. Jose Alba, a worker at a store in Harlem, was attacked by two customers. He killed one of them in self-defense, and was charged with murder. Those charges were eventually dropped, but Alba says the ordeal is far from over. I am now scared of people. I am not working because I am terrified for my life that someone in a gang will come after me for revenge,” Alba says.
New York City Crime Rates — A Comparison with Columbus, Ohio, when Representative Jordan announced the heinrichment of a group of alleged drug dealers —
Chris David was born and raised in Brooklyn but currently lives in Queens. He worries about his daughters, because he sees the news about people having been shot in New York and thinks it’s getting worse than in the ’90s. He blames it on leniency and bail reform.
Just one block down from where he’s walking his dog in his neighborhood, Lucy Nystrom, 28, has a completely different take. She says she feels very safe, although she acknowledges that “there’s definitely issues with mental health in New York City. I think it’s always been a problem here, and I think it’s being handled really poorly.”
The Mayor and Police Commissioner of New York did not acknowledge Representative Jordan’s hearing at the press conference. Instead, they announced the indictment of a group that was targeting nightclubs, drugging primarily gay men, and robbing them. The people died of overdoses.
Ahead of the hearing, Herrmann decided to compare New York City Crime rates with rates in Columbus, Ohio, which Congressman Jordan represents. You’re almost four times more likely to be killed in Columbus Ohio than in Manhattan. In Columbus Ohio, the rate of cars being stolen is 7.3 times greater than in Manhattan.
Some New Yorkers are alarmed. The crimes spiked quite significantly during the Pandemic. This was not a phenomenon only in New York. Car jackings were the most common crime in the U.S. Anti-Asian hate crimes were on the rise.