Crime is down, but…
Crime is on the downswing in New York. It’s not at the crime levels in pre-pandemic 2019, but it’s heading in the right direction.
At the end of 2019, NYC reported about 95,000 index crimes (crimes counted in FBI felony statistics). This year, the city will end up with a little over 120,000 crimes. That’s up over 25% from before the pandemic and Governor Cuomo’s criminal justice reform – hopefully Mamdani got one thing right when he bid adieu to Cuomo’s public life. Despite the pandemic related rise, NYC is still a safe city when compared to other cities in this country.
New York has seen crime decline for each of the past three years. One number that jumped off the page to me is the murder statistic. There have been 290 homicides this year as of December 14th. That is a low number indeed for a city of 8 million. The all-time lowest was 293 in 2018. We are not going to beat that, but it is still an amazing accomplishment. We should all feel safer.
Yet people are still scared. That is because of stories like the one that occurred in Macy’s Herald Square last week. A tourist visiting from California was changing her baby in a restroom in the iconic department store. Kerri Aherne, a mentally ill woman who was hearing voices, attacked her with a knife. Ahearne reported that voices in her head told her to go to Macy’s, purchase a kitchen knife in housewares, and then go to the 7th floor bathroom and stab someone. Aherne did what the voices told her. She attacked a woman who was changing her infant’s diaper in the restroom. Aherne was subdued by her victim after stabbing the woman repeatedly in the back. Fortunately, the child was not injured. Aherne is currently in custody on Riker’s Island.
The NY Post reported that Aherne had been released from a psychiatric facility on the day of the attack. If that surprises you, it shouldn’t. That is what our mental health laws and systems do on a daily basis. Too overwhelmed to properly diagnose people, and powerless to properly treat people, they are simply a revolving door for the seriously mentally ill. Cops respond to mental health calls, escort the individual to a hospital, the person is released the same day, cops are called back. The cycle continues until something goes horribly wrong – then the cops are blamed.
It doesn’t matter how low the murder rate is. It doesn’t matter that robberies are down 10% this year. It won’t matter if there are more cops on the street. Crimes like this are what scares the hell out of people. Random, unanticipated, remorseless violence by people so ill that they cannot be reasoned with.
We see it on the subways, outside bus stations, in ATM vestibules, and on the streets. A visibly deranged individual whose actions cannot be anticipated. Cops can do little to prevent that type of violence and often no amount of de-escalation training can stop it.
Judging from the announcements from the future Mamdani Administration, this problem is only going to get worse. As we reported last week, Mamdani is putting a college professor with zero experience in charge of the Department of Community Safety to assist with people experiencing a mental health crisis. Mamdani has also promised not to break up homeless encampments. The future is bleak.
Without stronger laws and a definitive plan, mental illness driven random violence will not decline. Tourists will not come. Iconic New York institutions like Macys will not survive. We have been calling for mental health law reform for years. It’s time we demand action from our legislators.
Trump’s Putin Squeeze
Maduro is firmly in the crosshairs of the relentless Donald J Trump. On its face Trump’s actions seems a bit perplexing. Yes, Maduro appeared to empty out Venezuelan prisons and send the former occupants to Joe Biden’s southern border welcome mat. But Trump has resolved that issue. Drugs do come from Venezuela, but nowhere near the amounts we see from other countries.
So, what is the deal? The Peace Prize pursuing President is beating the war drums hard in the direction of Maduro.
We should consider that this is a pressure move to get Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table with Ukraine. The United States has been targeting Russian allies over the past few years. We coordinated the ouster of Putin ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria. We defanged longtime Russian ally Iran in a strike on its nuclear facility. Trump has resumed the hardline economic policies intended to weaken Cuba. In addition, the tanker that the US raided last week was headed to Cuba with a supply of Venezuelan oil.
Trump has taken other steps to weaken Putin’s power. He cut a deal with Belarus, intending to weaken that country’s reliance on Russia. He has imposed additional sanctions and tariffs on countries like India, who purchase Russian oil. Trump has also imposed new and tougher sanctions on Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.
This all points to a bigger plan by the Trump Administration. Hit Putin in the wallet and isolate him on the world stage. Trump’s recent bellicosity may get Putin to cut a deal for peace in Ukraine, but only time will tell. Trump detractors see his moves as typical bull-in-a-china-shop posturing. Supporters see it as Trump playing four-dimensional chess. Hopefully it is the latter. We wish President Trump the best of luck for a peaceful 2026.
Brown University Chief Out
The Chief of the Brown University Police Department got the boot today, put on administrative leave. No doubt that will be a permanent leave for Chief Rodney Chatman.
We can point to several serious questions about the handling of security and the response to this month’s tragic shooting. We can start with the video surveillance system. The University’s president claimed that have 1,200 surveillance cameras throughout their 200+ building campus. Bad placement? Bad system? Bad security decisions? Human error? Perhaps it was just bad luck that there was no good video, but we doubt it.
He is The Chief. The buck stops with him. Security is his job, and his system failed. They didn’t even get a campus alert out until 20 minutes after the shooting started. They might as well have sent a telegram out with that lag time. They compounded the slow message with several erroneous ones. Mistakes happen, but the Brown Police Department seems like a rudderless ship.
One could see this coming. Chatman had some red flags in the past. He worked at 3 universities in the past. University of Cincinnati, University of Dayton, and as Chief at the University of Utah. He was placed on administrative leave at the University of Utah for not having his certification as a police officer which was required for his job.
He also received several complaints from the officers that he supervised for his poor management skills and fostering poor morale.
At the end of the day, it would be hard to believe that there were not more experienced and more qualified candidates for that prestigious position. Hopefully Brown University can fix any problems left by Chief Chatman quickly and effectively. Brown students deserve the best safety team possible after this tragedy.
ICE Attack
We can only imagine the number of death threats that Trump gets from lunatics of the left. An army of Secret Service Agents must be assigned to weed out the crazies from the dangerous crazies.
In recent months, Trump critics have turned their ire on ICE agents. These law enforcement officers are facing serious threats on a daily basis. It is nothing short of a miracle that none of them have been killed or seriously injured.
ICE is not backing down – still doing their operations and going after those that interfere or threaten them. They made no exception for TDS sufferer Logan Murfin from Skiatook, Oklahoma.
Mr. Murfin bravely took to X to fight the forces of fascism in his own special way. He wrote that federal agents “need to be gunned down, shot, and executed”. He also encouraged people to stay armed and kill ICE agents when seen, “because the agents don’t deserve to live”.
It turns out that the right to free speech is not as absolute as Logan initially believed. The US Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma instructed Mr. Murfin on the limits of online speech by sending Homeland Security Agents to his home to invite him to court. There he was presented with a 10-count indictment explaining to him exactly where the legal boundaries of free speech lie.
ICE, always willing to engage in some online trolling, posted the below statement.
Hopefully Logan Murfin has absorbed the lesson and will keep his opinions on who should be executed to himself going forward. As there is no known cure for TDS, we can only offer hope and prayers for Logan’s recovery.
We’re The United States of Amerigada?!
We would probably leave Joe Biden alone in his dotage (which started in the mid-1980’s) if it weren’t for pundits on the left banging on the cognitive capability of Donald Trump. It’s hard to believe that anyone pointing to a decline in Trump would be taken seriously when they told us for 4 years that Joe Biden was as sharp as a tack. It’s gone beyond laughable to the point of insulting. It points to the power of propaganda that anyone is listening to them.
But they continue the Trump decline narrative, so here goes a little good-natured hit on Sleepy Joe.
Earlier this month, the former President gave a speech at the International LBGTQ+ Leadership Conference in Washington DC. He gave a quite a speech, calling for an increase in pride, rights, and the can-do attitude of the United States of Amerigada. We wish the people of Amerigada the best in their fight against whatever Joe Biden was talking about in his incoherent and rambling speech.
Biden pulled out all the old stumbling cliches. “Well..anyway” when he lost his train of thought. “I’m serious”, “No joke”, “It’s not hyper(bole)” - he didn’t pull off the last syllable. Even Joe Biden’s Dad had his obligatory shout out in the speech. Ahh.. the memories - fuzzy memories. You think the teleprompter programmers would write a new speech after all these years.
He gave us a nice reminder of how lively and with-it the current White House occupant is.
Thanks for reading The Ops Desk. Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Joyous Festivus, and have a nice day! Stay safe!
As usual, spot on! Merry Christmas to the Ops Desk folks!
Well done.