Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is no fan of current Gov. Kathy Hochul’s deployment of National Guard troops to New York City’s subway stations.
As previously reported, last week Hochul began deploying National Guard soldiers and State Police officers to patrol New York City’s subways and, more importantly, check riders’ bags.
The new policy specifically states that subway riders must consent to a bag check or be denied access to the subway.
“They can refuse [a bag check, but] we can refuse them,” Hochul explained at a press conference.
Gov Hochul deploys Nat’l Guard, more police to subways amid crime surge, transit authorities say it’s not enough https://t.co/2MX4lQvkjz via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) March 7, 2024
But according to Cuomo, who left office in disgrace in 2021, this isn’t the right strategy.
“You need police,” he said Wednesday to hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby of the “Cats & Cosby Show,” according to the New York Post. “The National Guard are not police and we don’t have to reinvent the wheel here.”
“Why is there a spike in crime in the subway system? Because you have the lowest level of police in the subway system in a decade. You don’t need the National Guard checking bags. You need transit police in the system. That’s the answer … This is not what the National Guard does. It’s not what they’re trained to do,” he added.
He also slammed Hochul for pushing back against a request for her to hire more New York Police Department (NYPD) officers, arguing that her “no” was a political decision.
“We still have a hangover from this ‘defund the police,’” he said. “It’s just politics where the [city] council doesn’t want to hire police, and the state doesn’t want to say you should hire more police because it is this hangover [from] ‘defund the police.’”
It doesn’t make sense, he said, when you factor in the public’s decision to vote Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop, into office.
“New Yorkers elected a police officer as mayor,” He said. “The signal is undeniable. You elect a former police officer because you’re saying, ‘I want public safety.’ [Yet] we have fewer cops today than when they elected Mayor Adams,” he said.
Cuomo isn’t alone in complaining about Hochul’s decision. NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell has also taken aim at it:
NYers want truth and solutions! Let’s talk. Transit crime is 12% in the last 5 wks because of extra cops deployed, a planned commitment by @NYPDPC @NYCMayor Our transit system is not a “war” zone! Bag checks have been around since 2005??? I have a solution. Let’s try this.…
— NYPD Chief of Patrol (@NYPDChiefPatrol) March 7, 2024
So has Former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik, who wrote on social media that “the NYPD knows their job.”
“Give them the tools and laws they need to do the job and we wouldn’t have this problem!” he added. “This isn’t brain surgery. We’ve done this before, and we did it better than anyone in the country. It can be done with the right leadership! Stop the theater!”
Leftists have also been complaining.
“Ham-fisted and authoritarian response to several terrible incidents (even as the crime rate is falling ) that does nothing to foster real public safety but validates GOP propaganda about urban lawlessness in an election year,” Brooklyn assemblywoman Emily Gallagher wrote on social media.
Look:
Ham-fisted and authoritarian response to several terrible incidents (even as the crime rate is falling ) that does nothing to foster real public safety but validates GOP propaganda about urban lawlessness in an election year.
In other words, a predictable move by this Governor. https://t.co/LR3zMbMX7H
— Emily Gallagher (@EmilyAssembly) March 7, 2024
“There is zero evidence that conducting subway bag checks advances public safety,” Councilman Lincoln Restler, another Dem, tweeted. “Instead of wastefully deploying 750 National Guard troops, I wish the Governor did something helpful – like fund 750 safe haven shelter beds to move homeless people from the subways into housing.”
Meanwhile, NYC councilmember Bob Holden, also a Democrat, reportedly wrote a letter to Hochul demanding an explanation.
“These enhanced security initiatives’ timing and abrupt nature have prompted me to consider potential underlying reasons,” he wrote. “The scale and immediacy of the actions suggest that there might be more to the situation than has been shared with the public and elected officials.”
Then there’s Brooklyn assemblywoman Latrice Walker and councilwoman Shahana Hanif, two Democrats who have claimed the bag checks amount to a “veiled return to the stop-and-frisk era.”
“Decades of failed policies tell us who gets stopped at ‘random’ bag searches,” they said in a statement, adding that “black and brown people were disproportionately targeted.”
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Author: Vivek Saxena
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