The daily reports of escalating violent crime, resulting in growing numbers of innocent wounded and dead, are inducing a fear for safety that is outstripping any fear of cops. And politicians are beginning to see the numbers shift and reacting accordingly. Consider a few of the crime numbers…
Within hours of Saturday’s shooting in Times Square where three bystanders, including a 4-year-old girl, were wounded, the two leading candidates to replace Mayor Bill de Blasio were on-site.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a retired captain of the NYPD, and Andrew Yang, who declared:
“My fellow New Yorkers … Nothing works in our city without public safety, and for public safety, we need the police. … My message to the NYPD is this: New York needs you. Your city needs you.
“New York cannot afford to defund the police.”
The rush of Adams and Yang to the scene of the shooting, and the messages they delivered, tells us something about the state of play in politics — and not only in the city of New York.
Liberal mayors and urban politicians who enlisted in the Black Lives Matter “defund the police” movement after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last May, appear to have caught a wave that is now receding.
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