NYC NOW - June 26, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Newark and LaGuardia airports face major disruptions today due to thunderstorms and rerouted planes. A Newark apartment building was the scene of an exchange of gunfire this morning, with officials stating an officer returned fire after being shot at, resulting in injuries to two officers and the individual who allegedly initiated the shooting. In sports, Yankees’ star Aaron Judge remains sidelined with no clear return date due to a toe injury. Finally, tomorrow is New York City’s Primary Day. Queens and Bronx’s registered Democrats will make crucial decisions on their preferred county district attorney. WNYC’s Kerry Nolan discusses the matter with public safety reporter Samantha Max, who extensively reviewed all candidates and their campaigns.

NYC, Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Monday, June 26th. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. A severe thunderstorm warning has been canceled for the Bronx, Manhattan, and Bergen County, but the weather is making a mess of air travel today. Several hundred delays for cancellations have been reported at the three major airports,

according to flight aware. It follows major weather-related problems yesterday when there were more than 900 delays and 400 cancellations at LaGuardia and Newark. Already today, those two airports account for more than 200 cancellations and 100 delays. Law enforcement officials in Newark, New Jersey, are investigating after a shooting in an apartment building left one person wounded this morning. The Essex County Prosecutor's Office says the shooting happened around 5 a.m. on the third floor of the Abund Square apartments on Clinton Avenue. Officials say someone first fired at the officers, then one officer fired. back wounding that person. They already say that person was taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound and a stable. Two other officers were also hospitalized and are expected to be okay.

The spokesperson for the Essex County Prosecutor's Office says more information will be released later today. Yankees fans got discouraging news over the weekend about the chances that their captain and star slugger will return to the field anytime soon. Rightfielder Aaron Judge told reporters before Saturday's game that he still feels pain in his right big toe when he walks. is preventing the American League's reigning MVP from doing any baseball activities, and there's no timeline for his return. Judge injured his toe, making a spectacular catch. As he crashed through Dodgers Stadium's right-field wall, June 3rd, the Yankee captain also confirmed that he tore a ligament in his toe,

but neither Judge nor the Yankees have said how severe it is. After winning two of three against the Rangers, the Yankees improved to 8 and 10 since that injury. They are 31 and 19 when Judge plays or is available. Good chance of those showers and severe thunderstorms today. This is WNYC. On WNYC, I'm Carrie Nolan. Tomorrow is primary day in New York City,

and registered Democrats in Queens and the Bronx will have choices to make about who they want as their county's district attorney. Sitting Democratic DAs in Queens and the Bronx are facing challenges in the primaries. The candidates agree on many big picture ideas, but their visions for the role of top prosecutor are different. WNYC's Samantha Max,

interviewed all the candidates and reviewed their campaign materials. So, Sam, tell us about the candidates. Who's running? In the Bronx, two-term incumbent Darcel Clark is running against a progressive challenger named Tess Cohen. Clark is the first black woman to run a district attorney's office in the state, and she was first elected eight years ago when her predecessor abruptly left the race after winning the primary to accept a judicial post.

Cohen, who is running against her, is a former narcotics prosecutor, but now she works as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney. Then over in Queens, you have Melinda Katz, who is running for re-election. She's a former State Assembly member. She was the Queensboro president. She's running now for her second term. And Katz is up against Judge George Grasso, who was a former high-ranking official in the NYPD and then became a judge during the Bloomberg administration. he's implemented a bunch of programs to improve the city's court system. And finally, you have a defense attorney named Debian Daniels, who is running to the left of cats. These are all Democrats, I should say, and they all believe in reforming the court system,

at least to some extent, but they disagree on the balance between reform and enforcing the law. So what exactly do district attorneys do? I mean, what powers do they have? They have a huge amount of power to decide who's going to jail or prison and for how long. So they decide everything from when to bring charges, when to ask for bail, what to offer in a plea deal. Some DAs more recently have decided, for instance, not to prosecute certain types of low-level crimes to reduce the number of people who are going through their office. Others might advocate for, you know, harsher plea deals, like guaranteeing a lengthy sentence for a certain kind of crimes. They're essentially kind of setting the tone for how they want justice to be served in the borough.

And DAs can also use their offices to implement other programs, like giving grants to community organizations that work to prevent violence. The election comes several years after state lawmakers passed some sweeping changes to the state's criminal. justice laws, but some New Yorkers' feelings about public safety have changed in the years since. How does that pendulum swing factor into this election? There are several different reforms that listeners might be familiar with. One, affected when judges are allowed to set bail. Another changed how quickly prosecutors need to turn over evidence defense attorneys. There's one that restricted when teens can be tried in adult court. And those reforms have sparked a lot of backlash in the

the last few years. Prosecutors have been particularly critical and both incumbents have told me that even though they support the reforms, they have concerns about the changes to the law, especially discovery reform, which requires prosecutors to turn over evidence more quickly. So Katz and Clark both said they support the timely sharing of discovery materials with defense attorneys, but they said the deadlines are just too cumbersome. George Grasso and Queens also support some changes to the reforms. But Tess Cohen in the Bronx and Debian Janiels and Queens are stanched supporters of these policies, and they think their opponents have essentially just kind of overblown their concerns. These DA races also come in the midst of a humanitarian crisis on

Rikers Island. What are the candidates saying about how they would address that situation? So I asked all the candidates if they think that the district attorney should actively be trying to reduce the jail population. And they are. all said yet. The incumbents in Queens and the Bronx both have programs in place to try to divert certain groups out of the court system when they're arrested, like people with mental illness or teens who are charged for the first time with gun possession. But the progressives in the race want the DA's office to focus more on keeping people out of jail and making sure that those who are already in the jails don't stay there any longer than they need to. And then in the Bronx,

The DA's office also has jurisdiction over crimes committed on Rikers Island. It's part of their kind of catchment area. So D.A. Clark has set up a bureau on the island to investigate those cases. Cohen, her challenger, says the office should go even further. She says she would actually launch a grand jury investigation into jail, into conditions in the jail complex. I think that the DA's office stepping in on Rikers Island is a moral imperative. It just has to be done. We can't be locking up people in conditions that are so horrific that we have high rates of overdose and suicides and deaths and violent instances and slashings because that makes us all less safe.

And I should note that DA Clark has announced several criminal cases against both staff and incarcerated people on bikers in just the last few days. WNYC's Samantha Max. Thank you, Sam. Thanks, Carrie. 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. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More this evening.