The head of a major New York Police Department union has predicted that without a shift in the way New York City’s leadership approaches police officers after next week’s mayoral race, the city will eventually “fall” to criminals.
Paul DiGiacomo, the head of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, told Fox News in an interview that was published on Saturday that officers in the Big Apple need major assistance and they need it now.
Morale is at an all-time low while crime has trended up after funds for the police department were cut, bail reform laws went into effect and the culture turned against policing beginning last year amid protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Officers were abandoned long ago by Democratic NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who oversaw what amounted to staffing cuts that saw a class of 900 police officer recruits put on hold after the department was defunded $1 billion last year. The city also forced an effective and famed plain-clothes anti-crime unit to fold.
DiGiacomo said the sudden attack on cops by the government was unprecedented in the Empire State.
“It’s the first time in history that you had all three entities of government turn their backs on the police — and I mean on a city level, state level and federal level,” he told Fox. “We have to build up the morale of the police department.”
Shootings, homicides and the number of illegal weapons being seized has skyrocketed. The union head, which represents roughly 19,000 active and retired detectives, said it’s time to change the tone with the mayoral race just days away.
“We have to make people like the police again,” DiGiacomo said.
One active-duty detective named Rick Simplicio who works in the Bronx also spoke to Fox News about what he said is an unmistakable anti-police sentiment lingering in the air.
“The opinion of the police department [in 2020] suffered, unfairly in my opinion,” Simplicio said. “It’s not as vocal. It’s still out there. It’s just not as vocal as it once was.”
Shootings alone last year in New York City rose 97 percent when compared with 2019, as 1,531 were hit by gunfire. That’s because more guns are in the hands of criminals, according to DiGiacomo.
The union head blamed much of the issue on bail reform laws which see people arrested with illegal weapons, or those who commit other crimes which are sometimes violent, released quickly from jail.
He hopes de Blasio’s replacement will share his interest in bringing safety back to New York City.
“If the next mayor, whoever it may be, doesn’t fix the crime epidemic in the city of New York, the economic machine of the city will come to a halt, and the city will fall,” he predicted. “It’ll go back to days that you don’t want to see, and that we haven’t seen in many, many years.”
Democrat Eric Adams reportedly has a major lead over Republican Curtis Sliwa with regard to Tuesday’s mayoral election in NYC.
A poll from Emerson College/PIX11/NewsNation showed the Republican trailing Adams 25 percent to 61 percent with the rest of likely voters undecided. The poll showed de Blasio with a 61 percent disapproval rating.
Via The Western Journal.