NYC NOW - Midday News: Legal Aid Strike Averted for Now, Cuomo Calls for NYC to Regain Control of Rent Regulations, and Charges Dropped for 12-Year-Old in Brooklyn Shooting

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

New York City’s largest public defender group, the Legal Aid Society, has delayed a planned strike after demanding higher pay and lower caseloads. Meanwhile, mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo says the state should return power to the city to set its own rent regulations. Plus, a Brooklyn family court judge has dismissed manslaughter charges against a 12-year-old accused of accidentally shooting his 15-year-old cousin last year.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, July 18th. Here's the midday news from Tiffany Hanson. New York City's largest public defender organization has avoided a strike for now. Lawyers at the Legal Aid Society have been demanding higher wages, lower caseloads, and more flexibility to work at home. They authorized a strike last month for the first time in more than 30 years. Today was supposed to be the deadline to reach a deal or walk off the job, but the attorneys pushed it back another week. Legal aid is the largest public defender group in the city. Several smaller legal aid, legal services groups, rather, are now on strike.

New York City has a million rent-stabilized apartments, but the state of control of the laws governing them. For over a decade, Andrew Cuomo presided over that arrangement as governor, but as WNYC's David Brand reports, he's now taking a different position. As a candidate for mayor, Andrew Cuomo says he wants the state to give power back to New York City to set its own rent rules. Cuomo declined an interview request, but his spokesperson told WNYC that Cuomo wants to expand rent regulations to more tenants. New York Law School professor Andrew Cher says the comments are surprising.

He certainly had an opportunity to weigh in on this and do something about it all those years. Cuomo is running on an independent line after losing to. to Ziran Mamdani in the Democratic primary. Mamdani has pledged to freeze rents for tenants and stabilized apartments if he were elected mayor. Cuomo called that pandering. Mostly sunny sky expected today. We are heading for a high around 86 degrees, a little less humid today than it has been. Tonight's low, right around 70 degrees with a partly cloudy sky.

Right now we have some sunshine here in Soho with 78 degrees. Stick around. There's more to come. NYC. On WNYC, Michael Hill, police charged a 12-year-old with manslaughter and other crimes after accidentally shooting and killing his 15-year-old cousin last year in Brooklyn. Now a family court judge is dismissing the charges. WNYC, Samantha Max, is here to tell us more about this case. Sam, what happened here? According to the judge's ruling in this case, the two cousins were together at the 15-year-old's apartment in Brownsville.

The 15-year-old's dad was out of town, and according to news reports from the time, the kids found a gun under the dad's bed. The 12-year-old later told police that when he tried to put the gun down, it went off and he accidentally shot his cousin. Police responded to the scene. They found the 15-year-old Josai Guy lying on a couch with a chest wound. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, and then officials opened a case against the 12-year-old. and family court. They charged him with manslaughter and other crimes. After all this happened, the boy's attorney asked the judge to drop the case, and just recently, the judge agreed. Why did officials pursue charges in a case like this in the first place, and why did the judge ultimately choose to dismiss the charges? So as the judge's ruling explains, officials argued this

was a serious crime that caused serious harm. A child died. I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't. He wasn't able to speak with Guy's parents, but an obituary described him as a, quote, burning source of all things radiant and positive. The memorial said he was an athlete, an artist, a straight student, and that he dreamed of playing basketball and studying law at a historically black college. The shooting ended those dreams. But there was also another child on the other end of this case, and judges in family court in New York, they can dismiss charges. Even when the evidence suggests that a crime has been committed, the judge explains in this ruling that they have to consider various factors, like how serious was the crime, what was the extent of harm cause,

what's the need for community safety versus what's the best interest of the person facing the charges? So the judge in this case said there was no dispute. This was a serious crime that caused really terrible harm. But he said the child, had no history of rest, many community members had attested to his good character, and then also a big piece of this ruling was that a judge cited a psychological assessment that found the boy who accidentally shot his cousin, he's experiencing symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder and would benefit from mental health treatment, a psychologist found. So ultimately,

the judge decided to dismiss the case so that this child can get mental health treatment so that he doesn't have to keep going through this court case. And the judge said in his ruling that a 12-year-old shouldn't take the fall for the lapse in judgment of an adult who didn't properly secure a gun. I spoke with Dana Ratchland. She's the executive director of the nonprofit We Build the Block. She works with kids and teens in Brooklyn who are both victims and perpetrators of violence. Ratchland says the judge's decision in this case is based on the facts, the science,

and the spirit of the law rather than being overly punitive. This kid took somebody's life and there's nothing that we can say about that. Somebody died, right? But it's the true test of our values. The judge's decision referenced medical literature that found kids' brains operate differently and that puts them at a heightened risk when there's a gun around. I should note that the parents of the surviving cousin declined to speak with me through an attorney. How common are these types of accidental shootings? So nationwide, there have been at least 103 unintentional shootings this year. That's according to data collected by every town for gun safety support fund.

Four of those shootings were in New York State. two of them were fatal. Last year, there were at least 11 accidental shootings in the state, including guys. New York law requires gun owners to safely store their guns, especially if they have someone who is living with them who is under 18. Violating that law, which is supposed to protect children who live with gun owners, is a class A misdemeanor. I spoke also with David Pacino.

He is a legal director at the Gifford's. Law Center, he says parents often wrongly assume their kids don't know where their guns are. People never think about these things potentially happen to them or their families, but it's a real risk. So if you put a firearm into your home, it's responsibility to store it safely. A bill is currently pending in the state legislature that would update New York safe storage law. Sam, did any adult face any charges in this case? No. The Brooklyn DA's office told me police never arrested any adults, so they never received the case to bring any sort of prosecution. Parents do sometimes face criminal charges

when their child dies or kill someone else. I spoke with a legal expert who told me courts have found that parents have a duty to protect their kids. They're sometimes prosecuted when their actions could have contributed to a child's death. Those cases might involve malnutrition, refusing medical treatment, or exposing a child to another adult who the parent knew pose the danger. Prosecutors can also charge a parent who left a gun unattended. I mean, who, you know, violated the safe storage law that I was just discussing. But the burden of proof in a case like that is really high and it can be difficult to prove that the parent did something illegal. So in this case, no adult was criminally accused of wrongdoing.

What a story. WNIC Samantha Max and a tragedy here. Sam, thank you. Thanks, Michael. 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 podcasts. See you this evening.