NYC NOW - June 3, 2024: Midday news

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

An investigation is underway after a man allegedly shot two NYPD officers in Queens Monday morning. Plus, another investigation is happening in Brooklyn where a 14-year-old boy was shot and killed on Sunday. Meanwhile, some good news for local cricket fans: The International Cricket Council Men’s Twenty World Cup kicked off over the weekend. And finally, we head to Bubbles Are Us, a laundromat in Paterson, New Jersey. WNYC is visiting laundromats across the region as part of our election engagement project, “Suds and Civics.”

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Monday, June 3. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. Police are investigating after a man allegedly shot and injured two NYPD officers early this morning in Queens. According to police officials, the officers pursued a 19-year-old on foot around 140 after he got off a moped he was driving the wrong way on a street near LaGuardia Airport. officials say the man shot one officer in his bulletproof vest and the other in his leg, and they shot him in his right ankle. Police Commissioner Edward Caban says the officers are recovering and were visited by their families at Elmhurst Hospital. They're in good spirits, and the NYPD stands at the ready to assist them in the full recovery.

Once again, this could have gone a very different way. The suspect was taken to another hospital in stable condition. Police are investigating after a 14-year-old boy was shot and killed yesterday morning. in Brooklyn. Officials say the teenager was shot in the chest at Nich's Howard houses in Brownsville around 10 a.m. The NYPD says one person is in custody, but no charges have been announced. The New York Daily News reports police are looking into the possibility that a younger cousin may have accidentally shot him while playing with a gun. Good news for local cricket fans. The International Cricket Council Men's 20 World Cup kicked off over the weekend. Right now,

South Africa is playing Sri Lanka in Nassau County. It's the first time the tournament has been co-hosted by the U.S. The tournament kicked off Saturday in Dallas, and matches are being played in Texas, Florida, and New York. Teams from 20 countries are competing for the world champion title, which will be decided June 29th in Barbados. If you're new to cricket and want to learn more, head to our news site Gothamist. It's 82 now. More sun early this afternoon. Clouds later and just a very slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm will be near 85 degrees. Stay tuned. There's more up next. For WNYC, I'm Michael Hill.

It's hard to believe, but the November election is only about 150 days away. WNYC is focusing on voters and where they stand on the issues, using laundromats across the New York metro areas, hubs for civic engagement. We call the project SUDs and Civics. George Bodarki leads our community partnerships desk. He's speaking with us from Bubbles or Us in Patterson, New Jersey. joined there by Dan Casino, a professor of government and politics at Fairley Dickinson University and the executive director of the FDU poll. George, you've been visiting Bubbles or Us and other

laundromats once a month since February to talk to customers about voting in elections. What have you been hearing? A lot of people are focused on making ends meet and have expressed concerns about the rising cost of food and other necessities. Here's 39-year-old April Goldston. I spend at least like $300 in food every two weeks. I have to be sometimes late on my rent. You know, it's a lot. Goulston works as a quality training specialist, and she says help is hard to come by for someone in her circumstances.

I can't get food stamps because they say I make too much, but they're not like factoring in everything that I have to do because I am a single parent. I have to pay for electricity, child care, all of the, those things and I can't get any assistance. So it sucks at times. But what are you going to do? Doing the best that I could do. Goldston told me she hasn't voted in years because she doesn't feel like her vote makes a difference, Michael. She doesn't feel like her vote makes a difference. Is that something you're hearing a lot of, George? It is. Even among people who say they do go to the polls,

take 26-year-old Emily Olivo. They claim that we have a say, but in reality I feel like sometimes you vote and it doesn't do anything. Nothing changes. Olivo says one of her biggest issues is how the U.S. is prioritizing spending. They're giving money to Israel for work and it's honestly sad because there are so many issues going on here and in Palestine and we're just funding that, our tax money. And I just wish the government wasn't giving them money. Olivo says she wants to see a greater investment in education and affordable housing. What else has been top of mind for people at Bubbles or us, George? Public safety is a big issue here.

Tasha Ruffin has been living in Patterson for more than 20 years. She has three kids and a three-year-old grandchild. Gun violence. A lot of gun violence out here. That put fear in your heart. You be scared to walk the streets at night. We're scared to walk in a day sometimes. I'd like to bring Dan Casino in here.

Dan, hearing all of this, how do these local issues in Patterson compare to national issues in terms of influencing voter behavior. Are voters more motivated by local or national concerns? Most voters really are looking at the local issues much more than national. The local politics impacts their lives, much more than tax policy or the things we talk about on the national level. The other part of this is that the president and the party in power gets blamed for whatever goes on, whether they have anything to do with it or not.

When people are unhappy, unsatisfied, they want to vote against something, almost more than they want to vote for it. Dan Patterson is home to a sizable immigrant population. And in conversations with immigrants over the last few months, I've noticed a divide. Some, especially newer arrivals, are seeking more resources to support migrants, while others, particularly older generations, advocate for stricter border control. How do immigration issues shape the political landscape in New Jersey? And are there any notable trends in how different immigrant groups are voting. So what we've seen in the last couple of years is a shift in the way that immigrant voters are casting their ballots. We've got a lot of dissatisfaction in New Jersey with the institutional

Democratic Party, which has really been running things in Patterson and in the state for generations. And people saying, well, this institutional party isn't speaking to my needs. It's much more focused on these other issues that aren't speaking to what's happening to me in Patterson anywhere else. We also have seen some movement, especially in cities like Newark and Patterson, away from the Democratic Party. Now, not necessarily towards the Republican Party, but a lot more people, especially African-American and Latino men, now saying they're independent and not going with the Democratic Party, which is a huge problem. These cities traditionally have been where the Democratic Party had their base. They were able to turn out hundreds and thousands of voters on election day as needed from these places. and it's just not working anymore, as we saw recently in the 2020 election,

when Governor Murphy just barely squeaked by to victory because really because of low turnout in some of these urban core areas. Dan, long-time Democratic Representative Bill Pasquale, whose district includes Patterson, is facing a rare competitive race this year. He's facing a primary challenge tomorrow from Mohama Karulu, the mayor of Prospect Park. What does this race say about the state of politics in New Jersey? So when we see these challenges, this is part of what's going on in New Jersey.

politics, the larger story of New Jersey politics, of this kind of revolt among the Democratic base against Democratic establishment. And Bill Pasqurell has been in office for decades. He's 87 years old. He is, if we have a representative of what the New Jersey power structure looks like, the Democratic Party, it is Bill Pascal. And the voters now saying, well, what have they done for me lately? You know, have they actually helped us? Are they in touch with us? Patterson is a city that until a couple decades ago, really was run by, you know, Italian-American Democrat. since only in recent years that they've been able to get some power back and really start to run their own communities. And we're seeing that leak out into races for Congress, like this challenge against Bill Prescrell or the movement for having people vote uncommitted in the presidential primary here in New Jersey.

And, Dan, to what extent does Patterson's political and social climate mirror that of the rest of New Jersey and other parts of the country, for that matter? So we are seeing that there is a real movement for liberals and progressives to, to work against to be dissatisfied with the Democratic Party. We're seeing that here in New Jersey. I think we're seeing that all across the country. People saying, I don't know that they're representing what I want. I don't think they're turning towards the Republican Party. I think the Republicans have all the answers.

But there is dissatisfaction. And we're seeing that, I think, with President Biden's low approval ratings. And also just people worried about things that the national parties aren't worried about, like the cost of living and inflation that the national parties don't seem to have any solution for. And, Dan, a lot of times when George is doing these interoperations, reviews at these laundromats. We're hearing how women are really tough on some of these issues in talking about reproductive choice and so forth. And I'm curious, what are the latest trends in the gender gap in voting? Have there been any significant changes in how men and women are

voting? So the gender gap is really interesting because we know we talk the gender gap as a sex gap. We talk about men versus women, but it's actually not nearly that simple. The real gender gap is we're seeing men who have traditional gender identities. You value traditional masculinity, voting very, very differently than other men. And so it's more about gender traditionalism. Men and, to lesser extent, women who hold these traditional gender ideals are voting very differently than one else. And that's forming a very different kind of gender gap. And we're actually seeing that, I think, in national politics as well as politics here in New Jersey, where groups that tend to have more traditional gender identities are moving more towards the Republican Party or at least moving away

from the Democratic Party. And this is something that neither party quite knows how to deal with. And it's really been exacerbated by the candidacy of Donald Trump, who's making these appeals, especially to traditional masculine gender identities. We've been listening to Dan Casino. He's a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickens University. He's also executive director at the FDU poll. Also there, George Bodarky, is our community partnerships editor.

Dan and George, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC. 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 podcast. We'll be back this evening.