Last week’s fatal stabbing of a woman jogging along the Shore Parkway Greenway is just the latest sign that violence against women is surging in New York City; sure would be nice if City Hall took it seriously.
The killing of Katie Suarez comes just weeks after the year’s fifth rape in Central Park; rape citywide is up 2% year-to-date over 2025 and 23.2% over 2024.
Pressed on the alarming trend, Mayor Zohran Mamdani passed the buck to Albany, claiming the spike is largely driven by the “Rape is Rape Act,” which broadened the state’s legal definition of sexual assault, along with more survivors bravely coming forward.
Then again, the mayor’s strategy here looks a lot more like politics than policing: He marked Sexual Violence Awareness Month with a splashy $250,000 anti-harassment campaign, including digital subway ads, sidewalk decals at 150 locations and posters near 75 construction sites.
Oh, and Mamdani months ago quietly downgraded the city’s gender-based-violence office, subordinating it to his new Office of Community Safety.
Nearly a year in, the $271 million, 100-staff OCS can’t offer a single concrete description of its strategy to combat the rise in sexual violence.
At a City Council oversight hearing last month, OCS head Ayesha Delany-Brumsey instead blathered, “We are holding ourselves accountable, and we should hold ourselves accountable for the idea that we are going to have a comprehensive approach to violence.”
Be accountable for the idea that you’re going to have a plan . . . someday?
As context for that word salad, know that Delany-Brumsey is a PhD in clinical psychology with a focus on health-equity research and a long career in progressive advocacy on mental health and criminal justice.
So it’s no surprise that she delivered one message loud and clear: Her office’s answer won’t involve adding more cops to the beat.
Mamdani himself has recognized the crucial public-safety role of effective policing by keeping Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch on the job despite the demands of his lefty allies.
But the Office of Community Safety is one major way he is delivering to such progressives, and it gets to “hold itself accountable” for thinking about someday figuring out some approach to protecting women.
When it comes to combatting sexual predators, in other words, ideology still trumps effectiveness for this mayor: Good to know.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
