On Wednesday, a shooter on a moped murdered 7-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore in East Williamsburg; the day before, a Queens jury declined to hold a cop-killer guilty of first-degree murder — two terrible omens for the future of public safety in New York City.
But the worst omen of all commutes every day from Gracie Mansion to City Hall.
Yes, for now the city’s still getting safer, thanks to the work of Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and the men and women of the NYPD.
The first quarter of the year saw the fewest murders and shooting incidents in recorded history, plus excellent news on subway crime, retail theft and even record lows in murders and robberies in public housing.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani took credit for the crime drop, of course: “Our approach to public safety is working,” he crowed.
Except it’s not his approach, not by any means.
For the entirety of his time in politics, Mamdani has been staunchly pro-crime.
Whether it’s defunding the police, spreading bizarre antisemitic conspiracy theories about them, calling them “racist” and “wicked,” or publicly supporting a deranged would-be cop-killer, Mamdani has made his hatred of law and order — and the diverse group of men and women who protect them in Gotham — quite clear.
It’s easy to understand why the mayor is so cavalier with your safety.
He grew up super-rich, remember, in Columbia faculty housing (Columbia has a private security force).
And with visits to the family compound in Uganda; armed guards plainly packing machine guns turned out to protect his wedding bash there.
He went to ultra-exclusive Bank Street School, tuition $66,000 a year. Did mommy and daddy think the local publics weren’t quite safe enough?
Insulated by money and social status, Mamdani has never personally experienced any real threat of violent crime — and now he has a constant police escort protecting him.
What happens to people less protected by money and status and power is all too evident in the case of little Kaori.
How many similar tragedies have been caused by bouncing young gangbangers in and out of the family courts under Raise the Age?
By no-bailing adult offenders over and over for ever-worse crimes until they kill?
By making sure illegal immigrants can take advantage of Gotham’s sanctuary-city rules — which Mamdani backs to the hilt — to commit crimes with impunity?
Indeed: How many more such tragedies will his plan to empty Rikers Island produce?
No, credit for these amazing public safety numbers belongs to Tisch and the ranks of the NYPD, with a nod to former Mayor Eric Adams for spending years empowering them to turn crime around.
From her first day on the job, Tisch has focused relentlessly on bringing crime down — and on keeping communities safe from low-level disorder as well.
That’s what drives those incredible crime numbers — not opening prison doors or protecting illegal-immigrant thugs from deportation.
What a perverse dynamic: An NYPD commissioner dedicated to keeping criminals off the street and a mayor dedicated to keeping them out of jail and prison, even as he swoops in front of news cameras and tries to take credit for his subordinate’s success.
As long as she lasts, Tisch will be a bulwark against the ugly results of the left’s let-’em-loose obsessions; so far the obvious tension between her goals and the mayor’s ideology has not (quite) boiled over into open conflict.
But it’s hard to see this “marriage” lasting unless Mamdani abandons his pro-crime principles completely; otherwise, that calm will break — and a new wave of carnage will replace those record-low crime numbers.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
