Ex-Big Apple detective says surge in violent crime in NYC is down to BLM-inspired rioting and looting, the $1bn cut from the NYPD and demoralized cops - NOT school and business closures due to COVID as de Blasio claims

A former NYPD detective has blamed the violent crime surge currently plaguing the Big Apple on Black Lives Matter-inspired rioting, the defunding of the city’s police department and demoralized cops, warning ‘a law that isn’t enforced is not a law’.

Retired cop Pat Brosnan made the damning assessment during an appearance on Fox’s America’s Newsroom on Monday, in which he contradicted Mayor Bill de Blasio’s claims the latest spike in crime has been caused by business and school closures brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

‘It’s a convenient narrative to lay the blame on the doorstep of COVID, granted, COVID is a contributing factor, there is no doubt about it,’ Brosnan said.

‘But, riots for fun and profit, a desecrated police department in both morale and operationally, and a completely destructed and destructed rule of law relative to the adherence to it are the main drivers here - they’re the catalyst. COVID is just a first cousin that was a cause and effect.’

Former NYPD detective Pat Brosnan (shown right) said Black Lives Matter-inspired rioting and looting, in addition to the defunding of the city's police department is to blame for the recent surge in violent crime in the Big Apple

Brosnan said 'rioting and looting for fun and profit   a desecrated police department in both morale and operationally' have acted as a catalyst for NYC's recent crime surge (pictured above: Two looters are seen ransacking two stores in Manhattan amid riots sparked by racial injustice protests on June 1)

In slashing the NYPD's budget, Brosnan accused de Blasio's office of diminishing and 'demeaning' the moral of police officers (Pictured: Police arrest protesters as they march along a street in the Manhattan borough of New York, after a curfew on June 3)

Brosnan said the ‘common denominator’ for the rise in crime in New York and in other major cities across the US is ‘very simple’.

‘Until crime becomes illegal again – because a law that is not enforced is not a law – and until that changes, until that equation changes, and crime becomes illegal, we will see skyrocketing gun violence straight across all our major cities.’

Brosnan also attributed the surge to the ‘diminishment and demeaning’ of NYC police moral, which he said was caused by de Blasio’s decision to slash $1 billion from the department’s budget back in June, amid widespread racial injustice protests spurred by the death of George Floyd in May.

In a recent statement, Sergeants Benevolent Association head Ed Mullins appeared to share Brosnan’s sentiments, saying that after the city cut the NYPD’s budget, it ‘pretty much took away the ability of NYPD officers to make arrests.

‘We have cops out there who are hesitant to grab anybody simply out of fear that if it goes bad we may get ourselves arrested,’ Mullins continued.

Brosnan elaborated on Mullin’s point Monday, added that he believes a new-term has come to light, known as ‘de-arresting’.

‘De-arresting is where someone is lawfully placed under arrest for probable cause, but under pressure from politicians and the media who say certain crimes are no longer illegal, those people get a free pass,’ Brosnan explained. 

‘So how does that affect it all? Well we have commercial burglaries up 42 percent in New York City, and car theft up 64 percent.

‘A lot of it is related to COVID, we have more homeless and more mentally disturbed folks, but the reality is this free for all sense that there’s no sanction, there’s no penalty. It’s all carrot and no stick.’

Alfred Titus Jr., an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former NYPD homicide detective, recently voiced similar conclusions to Fox, describing the Black Lives Matter protests and the defunding of the NYPD as the ‘perfect storm’ to facilitate a crime surge.

Brosnan fought back against de Blasio's claims the crime surge as been caused by COVID-related closures, insisting it's 'a convenient narrative to lay the blame on the doorstep' of the pandemic

Three subway riders were pushed onto the tracks across NYC in three separate attacks in as many days last week. One involved Liliana Sagbaciela , 40, who was pushed in front of an on-coming train on Thursday (shown left)

A passenger turns away in horror as the train appears to run over Sagbaciela over on Wednesday

On Wednesday, a rapper surrendered to police in Bed-Stuy after a video of him blasting a flamethrower into the night sky while atop a city bus went viral. No one was harmed

From subway attacks to armed robberies and shootings, violent crimes have been on the rise in New York City in recent weeks.

At least seven people were shot in Brooklyn on Sunday night, bringing a close to a violent weekend that saw a man robbed and shot dead in Harlem on Saturday afternoon, and yet another stranghanger pushed onto the subway tracks – the third in a the space of three days.

The most recent subway victim, 29, was on the train with his girlfriend at around 11:30am on Saturday when a man who had been sleeping woke up and started shouting at them.

The couple got off the train at Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, but the man followed them. He then shoved the man onto the tracks, leaving him to scramble to safety. The victim was unharmed.

The attack came just two days after 40-year-old Liliana Sagbaicela narrowly survived being pushed onto the tracks in Manhattan by a mentally-ill homeless person. She was shoved just as the train was coming into Union Station, and miraculously fell into a gap between the wheels and the walls of the platform.

Hours prior, on Wednesday night, a man was pushed onto the tracks of the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station by a panhandler after refusing to give him money, authorities said. The victim was able to get back on the platform and wasn't seriously hurt. A suspect was arrested.

‘It’s not fair to the people who are using this system,’ Sarah Feinberg, NYC Transit interim president, said of the attacks during a Thursday news conference. ‘We have a crisis in this city, and it absolutely has to be addressed.’

Police are searching for the black man who attacked a man at another subway station in Brooklyn on Saturday

The blue jacketed-man managed to climb off the tracks and was unharmed in the attack

Citywide, gun crime is also experiencing a sharp and troubling uptick. Shootings have nearly doubled on last year, with 1,359 reported in the city as of November. 15, compared to 698 at the same point in 2019.

Shooting victims have also more than doubled, from 828 across the duration of 2019, to 1,667 this year as of November 15.

Furthermore, there have been 405 homicide victims so far this year, compared to 295 last year.

Several more shootings were reported in the city across the weekend.

Just hours after the subway incident on Saturday, 24-year-old Christopher Caraballo was shot dead during an armed robbery in Harlem.

He was seen on surveillance cameras arriving at the Wagner Houses project shortly before 3:45pm.

Surveillance footage from the area showed that Caraballo had been walking on East 125th Street shortly before the shooting and passed the gunman, who turned around and followed him to the housing complex.

Carballo was stood in the doorway, attempting to get in the building, when the gunman approached him from behind and the pair began exchanging words.

The suspect demanded that Caraballo took off a chain he was wearing around his neck, which Caraballo did and threw across the floor to the gunman.

The pair looked to be arguing over Caraballo's phone, and the gunman then shot him in the chest, grabbed the chain and ran off. Caraballo was pronounced dead later that night in hospital.

Caraballo, 24, is seen in green standing in the doorway of the Harlem housing project

Caballo is pictured removing the chain from around his neck, shortly before he was shot

Further gun violence happened in Brooklyn the same evening following a large-scale shooting in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

A 20-year-old woman died and six other people were wounded in the shooting at an apartment building that followed an earlier shooting near a Sweet 16 birthday party, police said.

The first shooting happened shortly after 9pm Sunday in the East New York neighborhood and left a 17-year-old boy wounded in the leg, New York Police Department Deputy Chief Michael Kemper said during a news conference. It's not currently known what prompted that shooting.

The second shooting took place about 11.15pm in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, and police said it's believed to be related to the first shooting. A 20-year-old woman was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.

Others shot at the apartment building ranged in age from 14 to 19 years old, according to preliminary information from police. They were expected to survive.

No arrests were immediately reported. Police said they were looking for more than one suspect in the apartment shooting.

First respondents were called to Bedford Stuyvesant on Sunday night after six were shot

The condition of those injured in Sunday night's shooting was unclear

Other recent crimes grabbing headlines in the city appear to have been more brazen and bizarre.

On Wednesday, a rapper surrendered to police in Bed-Stuy after a video of him blasting a flamethrower into the night sky while atop a city bus went viral. No one was injured, but 25 passengers on board were transferred to another bus.

In another incident, a pair of parolees allegedly broke into a home in Queens on Tuesday and held a family hostage during an hours-long standoff with police.

The startling increase in violence have provoked fears the city could be returning to its crime-ridden days of the 1980s, when residents feared for their safety amid a crack epidemic.

Responding to the rising statistics on Tuesday, de Blasio said he believed the current crime surge was being caused, in part, by businesses and school closures brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

‘A lot of things we depend on to keep people safe and stable weren’t there,’ he said last week.

De Blasio added earlier today that he was ‘real concerned’ about the seeming rise of subway attacks, adding that the NYPD will be increasing patrols at stations across the city.

‘We’ve got to make sure that New Yorkers have confidence that they can go and use the subway and know that help will be there for them,’ de Blasio said. ‘The NYPD will be increasing its presence in the subways. That will be very visible.’