The Daily Signal - New York City Eliminated Its Anti-Crime Unit. Violent Crime Has Surged.

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

New York City has seen a 53.5% increase in shootings and a 27% increase in killings this year, according to GianCarlo Canaparo, a legal fellow with The Heritage Foundation's Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.  The New York City Police Department disbanded its plainclothes Anti-Crime Unit amid calls to defund the police in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. The increased violence might be a result in part of the city's decision to disband the unit.  Canaparo joins the show to explain the factors contributing to New York City’s crime spike and what should be done to curb the violence.  We also cover these stories:  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced a bill to protect statues and monuments from protesters.  There is evidence that Russia is trying to hack research about a COVID-19 vaccine from the U.S., U.K., and Canada.  Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has put his foot down on the mandating of face masks by cities in the state. “The Daily Signal Podcast” is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, and Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also write us at [e-mail].  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And I'm Virginia Allen. New York City has seen a 53.5% increase in shootings and a 27% increase in murders this year. Giancarlo Canaparro Heritage Foundation Legal Fellow joins the podcast to discuss some of the reasons the city has seen a surge in violent crime and what should be done to stop the chaos. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced Thursday a bill to protect monuments from protesters. Public monuments are indispensable because they tell the American story. It is wrong to erase our history, McCarthy said in a statement via the Daily Caller.

Republicans Jim Jordan of Ohio and Sam Graves of Missouri. have also signed on to the bill. McCarthy added, We should be learning from it. Instead, left-wing mobs in cities across the country are destroying statues of General Grant, St. Sarah, Christopher Columbus, and abolitionists. This is lawlessness in its purest form

and most unacceptable form. In the week since the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25th, protesters have torn down or attempted to tear down statues of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, a Union General turned president, and even President's Washington and Lincoln, among others. There is evidence that Russia is trying to steal information about a COVID-19 vaccine from the U.S.,

UK, and Canada. The hacking group, known as APT-29, or Cozy Bear, is believed to operate within Russia's security services and appears to have launched a cyber attack against the three countries in order to steal vaccine research. The UK's National Cyber Security Center reported that Russian cyber actors are targeting organizations involved in coronavirus vaccine development. And the center's director of operations, Paul Chichester, cautioned in a statement, we would urge organizations to familiarize themselves with the advice we have published

to help defend their networks. Anne Newberger, the NSA's cybersecurity director, said in a statement that, APT-29 has a long history of targeting governmental, diplomatic, think tank, health care, and energy organizations for intelligence gain. So we encourage everyone to take this threat seriously. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has put his foot down on the mandating of masks. In a tweet, Candace Brose, a spokesperson for Kemp, said, previous executive orders, and now this order, state no local action can be more or less restrictive. than ours. We have explained that local mask mandates are unenforceable. The governor continues to

strongly encourage Georgians to wear masks in public. The Wednesday Executive Order keeps towns and cities in Georgia from mandating masks, but says those who live in the state and those visiting are strongly encouraged to wear face coverings as practicable, with the exception of exercising, eating, or drinking. Chad Wolf, the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has called out Portland, Oregon's leaders for failing to maintain order in the city amid protests and riots in the wake of George Floyd's death. In a statement released Thursday, Wolf wrote, The City of Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob, while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city. Each night,

lawless anarchists destroy and desecrate property, including the federal courthouse. and attack the brave law enforcement officers protecting it. Wolf concluded his statement writing, I reiterate the department's offer to assist local and state leaders to bring an end to the violence perpetuated by anarchists. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice have sent officers to Portland to guard the courthouse and other federal buildings in an effort to mitigate further damage.

Violence between rioters and the federal officials have led to increase tensions between local and federal leaders. In a tweet thread on Tuesday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said, I told the acting secretary that my biggest immediate concern is the violence federal officials brought on our streets in recent days and the life-threatening tactics his agents use. We do not need or want their help. The biggest thing they can do is stay inside their building or leave Portland altogether. Our goal is to end these violent demonstrations quickly and safely, and in the meantime, I ask him to clean up the graffiti on local federal facilities. Now stay tuned for my conversation with John Carlo Canaparo, Heritage Foundation

Legal Fellow, as we discuss the violent crime surge in New York City. Conservative women. Conservative feminist. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen, and every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories and interviews that are particular interest to conservative leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to policy and politics. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcast. I am joined by John Carlo Canaparo, Heritage Foundation Legal Fellow.

John Carlo, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Virginia. Well, you know, I wish that we were here to talk about happier news today, but we are discussing really the frighteningly high spike in violent crime in New York City. Last weekend was a really tragic weekend in New York City. Could you begin by just telling us a little bit about what happened last weekend? Sure.

Let me, I'll start by telling you the story of, Develle Gardner. Develle was one years old. He was with family and friends at a neighborhood barbecue. When unknown assailants drove up, hopped out of their car and opened fire on the barbecue, they hit three men wounding them. Thankfully, all of them seemed to be fine, but Develle died of his wounds. The same day, two other children, ages 12 and 15, were shot in Brooklyn and Harlan. and they were among a total of 64 people shot in New York just this last weekend. Wow. Well, and sadly, John Carlo, this is a trend that we're seeing right now in New York City. So far this year, New York has seen a 53.5 increase in shootings and a 27% increase in murders.

And you just wrote a sobering but really fantastic piece for The Daily Signal about this crime surge. Could you just kind of give us the big picture of what is going on in New York City right now as it relates to this rise in violent crime? Yeah, sure. So far, as of the last time that the NYPD put out stats, which was on the fifth of this month, we've seen 528 shootings in New York. Like you said, these numbers are up big time, 50% shooting, 63 shooting victims, almost 30% increase in murders, just this year. year. We've seen, you know, this comes following a lot of anti-police protests and riots, as well as the New York City's decision to disband the police forces anti-crime unit. And New York is not alone in this. We are seeing this trend in a lot of big cities.

Chicago is on track to have its most violent year since the mid-90s. We've seen in that city 336 murders as of July 2nd. So this is a really distressing trend of violence throughout America's big cities. So you mentioned that the NYPD, they dismantled their anti-crime unit. What did this unit actually do and what is not happening in New York City right now because of it being disbanded? Sure. So the anti-crime unit, it or was undercover, plain clothes cops assigned to each precinct and city housing. They combated, they went after illegal guns, local crime sprees, and focused on burglaries. Incidentally, we've seen that burglaries are up 45% in New York this year so far. So the reason that they were disbanded, I think, is because

that they were involved in more police shootings than other departments by the nature of of what they did, focusing on violent crimes and guns. But what you've seen then is that the New York Police Department is now deprived of basically its first responders to the most violent types of crimes. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that if these are the police officers, like you say, that are in plain clothes and living in the communities, probably 99% of the time, they're the first ones that are able to be on those crime scenes and respond. Right, exactly right.

They're the officers who are going to be there before people know that the police are there or coming. And so they're going to be in a lot hotter situations than the average officer who comes in sirens blazing after an incident has commenced or finished. Okay, wow. So right now there's a lot of finger pointing going on in the big. Apple with Mayor Bill de Blasio saying it's the courts and the court saying, no, it's De Blasio and the NYPD and everyone is blaming someone else. So who should actually be held accountable and responsible for this massive crime spike? Boy, there's really no share or no shortage of people to blame. We saw earlier this year that New York undertook some criminal justice

reforms, including its, I think the consensus in now is that its bail reform was somewhat disastrous. It has released a lot of felons for COVID-19 to get them out of prisons because those were vulnerable populations. And we see that there are elements to this Black Lives Matter protests, which are more than just a cry for justice. There is a movement, a Marxist, anti-police, anti-establishment movement behind this motto, which has been encouraging violence and a culture of lawlessness. And we've seen that the New York Police Department has, in some cases, not engaged,

not put its foot down, which means that people slowly or rather quickly actually learn that there are not consequences to criminal action. And so you've got this culture of lawlessness and violence that is spinning out of control in New York. And to see this firsthand, you can go online. And there, I mean, there are hundreds, if not thousands of videos, really disturbing videos of just violent lawlessness going on. The sort of thing that, you know, a healthy society does not glorify. To what extent do you think COVID-19 should be factored in? into this to where you kind of have a lot of people out of work or, you know, maybe have less work and they're bored or they're restless. And, you know, are they maybe now more prone to get

involved in criminal activity? Yeah, it's hard for me to say to what extent COVID-19 is affecting this. But I think you, I mean, it makes sense intuitively to me, at least, that with the release of criminals from jails for COVID-19 purposes and the fact that people are not otherwise engaged productively with jobs or what have you. It makes sense to me. These are factors that come together and seem to be causing this problem. Yeah. Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, whose district includes parts of the Bronx and Queens, she made a very interesting comment that the spiking crime was due to poverty and people not being able to feed their families, so they're stealing bread. What does this comment reveal about just how out of touch Representative Ocasio-Cortez

and others radical leaders on the left are really out of touch with reality? Sure. Well, let me start. First, let me walk through how this conversation started because there's a timeline here that affects how people are talking about this. So she gets on a a video and she says, well, maybe the crime, the rising crime has to do with, like you said, people feeling the need to shoplift some bread or go hungry, was her quote. And that statement, taken at face value, is belied by the evidence, right? This is not shoplifting. We've seen 53% rise in shootings. We've seen murders on the rise. Burglary is on the rise. And to be clear, burglary, an increase in people shoplifting for bread would not lead to a rise in burglary stats because New York charges shoplifting as larceny.

Now, larceny stats are actually down in New York. Petit larceny, meaning anything less than $1,000, is down 7.5%. Grand larceny for bigger thefts, down 20%. So shoplifting is not what's attributing or what's leading to this rise in violent crimes. So when she was presented with these facts and got a lot of pushback, she did what she and a lot of politicians often do, which is to retreat from the specific claim into a generality. And she said, Republicans are just all upset that I'm connecting the dots between crime and poverty. That's what she said.

Well, that's gaslighting, pure and simple, right? Because if this was just about poverty, we would expect to see that month over month recently, these crime stats would be going down because as the economies have slowly reopened, we've seen the unemployment levels drop quite dramatically, in fact. By the end of July, unemployment dropped about 5%. It's still very high. It's still too high, hovering around 11%, but down significantly. So if her explanation, crime, poverty, related was the explanation here, we'd expect to see month over month a drop.

But in fact, what we've seen is month over month, 165% more shootings, 204% more shooting victims, and 21% more murders month over month. So that causality is backwards. So even if, you know, she's allowed to retreat away from her specific claim that this is shoplift, Her general claim that this is just the relationship between crime and poverty doesn't explain what's going on. Wow. Well, and I mean, New York has showed us that, you know, defunding parts of your police department, it doesn't work. It only leads to more chaos, more crime. But, you know, it's obvious after the death of George Floyd at the hand of police officer Derek Chauvin that, you know, reforms do need to take place and do need to happen. So how should cities and communities across America respond to the death of George Floyd so that another man or woman is not wrongfully killed at the hands of a police officer? So what we need to see from reformists is a commitment to reform based on what we actually know and not just what we think or feel we know about how police behave.

And we need targeted reforms that prevent or punish or eliminate bad actors from within. the police forces, but to paint with a broad brush and to simply disband, defund, or eliminate police forces will only encourage bad actors in the community to do what they're going to do with impunity. John Carlo, to what extent is this a state and local level issue versus something that Congress should take action on? Oh, it's almost exclusively a state and local issue because the vast, vast majority of police citizen interactions are at the state and local level. Federal police forces are not out there on the street dealing with people on a day-to-day basis. Every community is going to have different needs. Communities that are quieter, communities that have a lot more

police presence. These are all, they're going to have different needs and considerations and how each community interacts with its police force is a deeply local decision. Yeah. Interesting. So New York had terrible crime in the 1970s, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani is largely credited with cleaning up crime in the 90s, although his methods have been attacked by some. What is New York City's history of crime? So in a city like New York, it's really easy for somebody to get lost in the crowd. And that dynamic, that mentality can lend itself well to the, in some people, the conception that, well, I can commit crime because I won't get caught.

What big cities like New York and Chicago need is a police presence that is there, that's visible, that's engaged and involved with the community, to cultivate not only a sense that police are there for our protection, for, you know, the vast majority of people who are good in law-abiding citizens, but also to cultivate amongst people who are not, that they are not going to get away with criminal behavior. So if you could sit down with some of New York City's leaders today and say, hey, guys, this is really what we need to implement first today, right now. This is what needs to change in order to, you know, strengthen that police force and bring this crime surge down. What would you say to them? A couple things. Number one, again, I would just reiterate that to tackle these issues, we need to be going at it from a data-driven. approach. What do we actually know and not listen to social activists who are espousing a philosophy that is not necessarily tied to the facts? Number one. Number two, there are going to be bad actors

within the police forces. Like there are bad actors everywhere. We need to system where they can be found out and punish. Now, one of the problems that police forces face is, as with teachers at other unions, a union can create a lot of stickiness for bad actors in the police force that they can't be fired or they can't be removed from the beat. So those sort of concerns need to be whittled down. On the other side of the extreme, though, you can't just get rid of your police forces in an overcorrection because there are always going to be bad actors in the community as well. So you've got to find that balance. You need the police engaged with the community, building trust with the community, present in the community.

But you can't divorce from that relationship, the fact that police are necessary. Most police are good, hardworking people who are just trying to do their jobs. We encourage all of our listeners to follow John Carlo's work and follow him on Twitter at G. Conoparo. And John Carlo, thank you so much for your time today. I just really appreciate your insight on this really important subject. My pleasure. Thanks, Virginia.

And that will do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. And please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts and give us your feedback. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinie, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.