Think what you will about House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and the hearing he held Monday on crime in New York, but make no mistake: The issue absolutely deserves attention — and no amount of Democratic pooh-poohing it can change that.
Dems accuse Jordan of using the event to “protect Donald Trump,” as Rep. Jerry Nadler put it (D-Manhattan), after the notoriously soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted the ex-prez.
They point to a recent decline in city homicides and compare murder rates here to that of other places.
Yet murders have fallen largely thanks to the work of Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD, despite Bragg’s efforts to undermine them.
In fact, Bragg is the poster boy for radical DAs around the country (many backed by far-left billionaire George Soros) who readily admit their goal is to keep criminals out of jail.
Bragg campaigned on it, and in his infamous Day 1 memo he spelled out his plan to keep defendants free to roam the streets.
The Post has since reported case after case where he’s cut criminals a break: Even as he was busy indicting Trump (on ludicrous charges), he was downgrading felony robbery charges to mere misdemeanors for a career criminal, Rodney Johnson, with nearly 90 busts and two stints in state prison under his belt.
Indeed, from Jan. 1, 2022, when he took office, through late November, Bragg knocked down 52% of felony cases to misdemeanors, The Post reported. Of course that’s contributed to Gotham’s crime woes.
“You cannot convince us not to believe our lying eyes,” because “we see it with our eyes day in and day out,” fumed Madeline Brame, chair of the Victims Rights Reform Council, at Dems. Her council was formed in honor of her son, who was slain in Harlem in 2018.
“There are hundreds and thousands of us,” Brame added. “We don’t give a damn about the politics” as long as someone brings “civility and sanity to our city.” Hear, hear.
Jose Alba, the bodega clerk Bragg did initially charge with second-degree murder for fatally stabbing an attacker in self-defense, also testified.
Bragg’s not the only reason crime here has soared, of course, with major felonies shooting up 32% last year over 2019, the year before the pandemic. Albany’s criminal-justice reforms that year also played a major role.
And, yes, other places (especially those run by Dems) have seen crime surge, too: Chicago was a crime nightmare under outgoing Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot (and Soros-backed prosecutor Kim Foxx), and may grow even worse under pro-criminal Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson.
But New Yorkers should be grateful their city’s crime problem has come under the national spotlight. The more pressure on progressives in Albany and DAs like Bragg to get tougher on crime, the safe their city will be.