New Yorkers had not experienced such a wave of violence for almost a quarter of a century: on the National Day weekend of July 4, ten residents were shot dead and 53 others were wounded in the course of 44 different incidents in the four corners of the metropolis. In June, there were 205 shootings, a 130% increase from last year. And in April and May of this year, police seized more than $ 16 million in drugs compared to $ 5 million in the same period last year.
These figures have not gone unnoticed in a metropolis still weakened by more than two months of confinement, brief riots in early June, an unprecedented curfew since World War II and daily demonstrations for the Black Lives Matter movement. Yesterday again displayed as an example of success against crime, in the United States but even around the world, New York suddenly finds itself in an unenviable position. And even President Donald Trump is getting involved.
He said on Tuesday that he was considering mobilizing federal agents to restore calm in New York. This earned him a scathing response from Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio who threatens to bring the case to justice, considering the presidential approach “unconstitutional”.
“Bill! Do something ! “
Admittedly, we are far, very far, from the statistics of the early 1990s, when there were more than 2,000 homicides per year, compared to 318 last year. But for New Yorkers who lived through that era, and anyone who also remembers the 1970s, when New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy, the trend is alarming. Earlier this week, the New York Post called out Mayor Bill de Blasio on the front page: “Bill! Do something ! “
What can he do? For him, the coronavirus pandemic is, at least in part, responsible for what he called a “serious situation”. “People have been locked up for months, he pleaded, economic activity is still slowing down […] and closing courts is a central issue. Not only have the courts virtually ceased to function, but several prisons, including the infamous Rikers Island, have had to release inmates due to the proliferation of the virus among the prison population. Several of the recent homicides are also settling scores, according to the police.
But for his opponents, and there are many of them, it is the mayor’s very attitude that poses a problem. “He’s too passive,” said Kathleen Martin, a New Yorker from the Hells Kitchen neighborhood. I didn’t like Bloomberg, the previous mayor so much, but at least he was moving and he had managed to limit the number of guns in the city. “
The forbidden choke key for local police
Bill Bratton, who was the police chief during the time of former mayor Rudolph Giuliani and as such one of the main architects of New York’s turnaround, doesn’t mince words. “New York is a disaster and it’s going to be a lot worse,” he recently told WABC-77 radio. The morale of the police is at zero, they feel attacked from all sides. “
For Bratton, who was also the chief of police at the start of Blasio’s tenure, the entire New York political establishment is responsible because they launched reforms that hamper police efficiency.
