NYC's 'soft on criminals experiment' has been a disaster: NYPD commissioner blames crime reforms for emptying jails after suspect arrested 50 times goes on the run after being freed

The New York Police Department commissioner implored the state's new governor to roll back disastrous crime reform laws, calling the 'soft-on-crime experiment' a failure that has led to the city's runaway crime.

'This city is built on public safety,' NYPD top cop Dermot Shea told NY1 on Tuesday. 'We're probably about two years into this soft-on-criminals experiment. … Show me a New Yorker that thinks this experiment has worked.

'It's been a disaster. By any definition, it's been a disaster.'

Shea made the comments after an innocent bystander was wounded Monday during a 5:42 p.m. shooting near West 31 Street and Seventh Avenue. Police said the gunman meant to strike a man inside Penn Station who he'd been arguing with over food.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea says recent criminal reforms have been 'a disaster'

Officials are calling on newly-appointed New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to crack down on crime

'Common sense is what we need,' Shea said. 'Reforms are good, but let's do reforms that are calibrated in such a way with the input of law enforcement. We all work for the same person: the public. These laws over the last couple of years have been a disaster.' 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was sworn into office Tuesday, has yet to outline her approach to controlling the crime-ridden city. It will be up to her to decide whether to continue New York's state of emergency over gun violence, issued in July by disgraced Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Shea said Monday's daylight shooting was just the start of a broken, revolving-door justice system that allows criminals to return to the streets without being adequately punished.

Last week, he said, a career criminal who had been arrested about 50 times was escorted by an officer to a courthouse to answer to six of his latest charges. Rather than locking the man up, the judge let him go and instructed him to return in a few days later, Shea said.

The man never returned.

'Nobody is advocating to throw everyone in jail, but what we have right now by definition is insanity,' Shea said.

Earlier this year, long-time New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullin blamed Mayor de Blasio, then-governor Andrew Cuomo, and others for the city's apparent state of bedlam. 

Shootings in NYC are up 45 percent since 2013 and seven percent year-over-year, a trend that continues to spark calls for gun control

The man who allegedly bashed his victim's head with a hammer was on parole at the time of the crime

Arrest, Release, Repeat: Career criminals allowed to go free and roam streets for new victims 

March 25:  Brandon Elliot, a NYC man on lifetime parole for stabbing his mother to death in 2002 was charged with beating up an elderly Filipina on her way to church

 

June 12: Raymond Wilson , a serial burglar who was arrested 19 times in the past eight months was free on bail when he allegedly broke into a child's Greenwich Village bedroom and molested her  

 

 

 June 17:  Michael Lopez , the alleged Bronx sidewalk shooter who nearly killed two kids was out on parole despite five prior arrests

 August 22: James Newton , who was previously charged in April with five misdemeanors, was arrested after allegedly bashing a stranger's head with a hammer at a NYC subway station

 'The city is in a freefall and there is no one in charge,' Mullin said in a Mailonline.com essay. 'The politicians who enacted the imbecilic reform laws are too proud or embarrassed to admit that they made a mistake.'

A state-wide bail law that took effect in early 2020 requires those charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies to be released without having to pay bail. (De Blasio objected to that law and pushed for changes in Albany.)

Meantime, violent crime continues to soar in the city, with homicides up 32 percent since 2013. (They are down one percent year-over-year.) Shootings are up 45 percent since 2013, and have increased by seven percent year-over-year.

De Blasio in April attributed the spike in gun violence to a court system that's been brought to a standstill by the ongoing pandemic.

'I can tell you that there are people out right now who would normally be going through a trial process and if that trial meant that they had to have a consequence they would be receiving that consequence,' the mayor told NY1. 'I think it is one of the factors that's contributed to why we're having this uptick in violence.'

De Blasio will term out of his position Dec. 31, and criminal reform promises are at the heart of many campaigns to replace him.

Mayoral candidate Eric Adams said he has a plan to reduce crime in New York City through legitimate police reform, transparency, and diversity.

If elected, he vowed to strengthen handgun laws so that 'New York City residents are not put at risk by lax laws in other counties and municipalities.'

Other campaign promises included turning the anti-crime unit into an anti-gun unit, empowering communities, and 'civilianizing' areas of the city that aren't staffed by police.

While Shea blasted some of the outgoing leaders over crime reforms, he said he's hopeful the incoming politicians bring change.

'Marches are great, but we don't need marches anymore,' Shea told reporters gathered outside the Penn subway station following Monday's shooting. 'We need action. We need laws that help the police, rather than hurt and take tools away form the police. I view this incident today as the confluence if a series of bad policies and this is what you get when you get them.'