NYC NOW - February 14, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

Police have a 17 year old in custody for an assault on NYPD officers in Times Square last month. He's charged along with 5 other suspects who've been arrested and charged for their roles in an altercation that was caught on video and quickly went viral. Meanwhile, a 15-year-old accused of shooting and injuring a tourist last week is facing attempted murder charges, but not charged with violating the Times Square Gun Ban. Plus, WNYC’s Brigid Bergin recaps Democrat Tom Suozzi’s victory over political newcomer Mazi Pilip in a special election to fill the congressional seat previously occupied by George Santos.

NYC. Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, February 14. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. Police have a teenager in custody for an assault on NYPD officers in Times Square last month. They say a 17-year-old was arrested in Midtown last night. He's charged with assault and joined.

five other suspects who've already been arrested in charge for their roles in the altercation, which was caught on video and quickly went viral. Last week, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted seven people in connection with the incident, including two who had not yet been arrested, but it's unclear if the teen was one of those two. It is illegal to carry a gun in Times Square, even if you have a concealed carry permit. That's because lawmakers made it a so-called sensitive location in 2022. Now, a 15-year-old accused of shooting and injuring a tourist last week is facing attempted murder charges, but he's not charged with violating the Times Square gun ban.

Prosecutors say the teen is already facing serious charges, but critics say the fact that prosecutors are not using the new law in a case like this shows it's ineffective. Louis Valdez is a national spokesperson for gun owners of America. Imaginary lines don't stop criminals from breaking the law. A judge ruled yesterday to keep the teen in. jail while he awaits trial. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC, I'm Michael Hill. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers have a new representative in Congress. Tom Swazi is heading back to Washington after feeding political newcomer Mazzie Pillop in the special election for a district that includes

parts of Nassau County and Eastern Queens. It's the seat that the expelled George Santos had to vacate. WNYC's Bridget Bergen has been covering this race and she joins us now. Bridget, let's jump straight into this. We were expecting a tight race. How close was it? Not as close as we thought, Michael. It ended up being, based on the current results, more than 10 points that Swazi beat Mazi by. We thought, we might not even know the results last night, but the Associated Press called it just after 10 p.m. Swazi had enough of a lead at that point based on the numbers that Pillop just couldn't close the gap. She gave. of a very brief concession speech, thanking her supporters, and very clearly accepted defeat.

We are fighters. Yes, we lost, but it doesn't mean we're going to end here. At a time when some Republicans, including former President Trump, of course, have so doubts about election results, it's not insignificant that she acknowledged so plainly that she lost. And it's unclear at this point if she plans to run again, but she's certainly someone that some Republicans see is having a future in their party. Suasi has a long history, especially with Long Island voters, remind us about his back story. Yeah, his roots go way back. His family's been involved in politics for a long time in Glencove. That's the city where he became mayor going back about 30 years ago, later became

Nassau County Executive, served in Congress for three terms, but opted not to run in 2022 and instead made that very unsuccessful bid for governor. So he had high name recognition from the start, and he was running in the wake of the George Santos drama and ran a very strong campaign. What issues do you suppose Bridget propels Swazzi to victory here? He's a real moderate, Michael. He knows these voters. He's just his support for Israel, lifting the salt cap. On abortion rights, he tried to make that a wedge issue with Pellup, who said she personally did not support abortion, but didn't want to limit other women's choices, but then supported the road decision. He really talked about working across the aisle to find solutions to the thornyest issues facing the country.

Didn't shy away from talking about immigration as a problem, but he really seized on how unwilling Republicans have been to come to the table to negotiate a solution. He said voters are sick of that dysfunction. But the people of Long Island and Queens are sick and tired of the political bickering. They've had it. They want us to come together and solve problems. So now we have to carry the message. this campaign to the United States Congress and across our entire country. And now he heads to Washington.

Republicans have now run two straight, fairly unconventional candidates for this district budget. Last time around it was the rather unvetted George Santos, and this time Mazi Pillar barely held any public events to boost our campaign. What does this tell us about the state of Republicans strengthen this area? It's home to quite a few traditionally Republican voters? Well, I think the party underestimated the damage to its brand from the Santos saga, and they also ran a really stealth campaign for Mazie Pellup. They didn't allow her to even, you know, get to know her own supporters, and that just really didn't seem to be a winning strategy. Did the snow play a factor? You know, both campaigns offered to give rides to voters

so they could get to the polls yesterday. But Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakman did say he was concerned that the weather was depressing turnout among Republicans. We also heard that from the NASA GOP chair Joe Cairo. On the flip side, New York State and Nassau County Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs was pretty optimistic going into the results last night. And that's because he said they had worked so hard to turn out voters by mail and during early voting on top of the turnout yesterday. Is this any kind of a bellwether for the elections in the fall? The Democrats certainly hope so. As I said, Swazi ran a very strong campaign. They outspent the Republicans, managed to drum up some real grassroots supports. But he adopted this very centrist set of positions. Talked a lot about working across the aisle.

And that pragmatic approach is something that moderate Democrats in purple districts might be able to adopt to appeal to similar suburban voters. And speaking of that, this isn't even the last election for this seat this year, didn't right? That's right. Far from it, Michael. Swazis won last night only gets them a seat. in Congress until the end of this year, the end of what would have been George Santos's term. We have a whole new election cycle just beginning, and that's after new district lines may be redrawn as potentially as soon as this month. A Democrat de Swazzi's left may try to primary him in June. We don't have a name yet. And then, of course, there's the election in November if he wants to run for a full two-year term starting next year.

WNIC's Bridget Berg and Bridget, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.