New York’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Letitia James, is going after . . . law enforcement.
On Monday, James said she’s probing the NYPD’s fare-evasion policing for racial bias. It’s a disgraceful pander.
“If NYers have been targeted because of the color of their skin, we will not hesitate to take legal action,” she tweeted. Well, sure: If cops were singling out minorities, she’d be remiss not to act. Yet there’s no evidence — none — of such targeting.
From October 2017 to June 2019, James notes, minorities got 70% of the fare-evasion summonses and accounted for 90% of arrests, though they’re only 52% of the wider population. But this tells you nothing unless you determine what percentage of farebeaters they are: James should have determined that before announcing any wider investigation.
After all, 2018 crime stats show that minorities made up 93% of the suspects in murder cases, 81% in rapes, 92% in robberies and 80% in misdemeanors. Is James suggesting that cops are racists for making those arrests? Does she want officers to stop making them?
Her office also points to allegations of bias in a court case, but those also amount to little: It’s four cops claiming a superior ordered them to focus on minorities . . . back from 2011 to 2015. A probe found the charges “meritless” — and even if they were true, one official’s orders are a far different thing from actual NYPD policy.
No, the AG’s simply grandstanding, trying to capitalize on the anti-policing insanity that’s triggered a raft of soft-on-crime changes. Indeed, 95% of those accused of hopping turnstiles no longer get arrested but just issued summonses; DAs generally won’t even prosecute such cases.
And as arrests have fallen, the cash-strapped MTA’s loss of fare revenue has doubled, from $150 million in 2017 to $300 million in 2019.
Plus, fare-beating and other minor crimes add to overall disorder — and so breed more serious crime. That’s why the ’90s crackdown on fare-beaters proved a key factor in helping bring all crime rates down.
James should focus on enforcing the law — rather than undermining it by smearing cops as racist.