What to say about the Bronx and Manhattan district attorneys throwing out most of the looting and vandalism cases from the wake of the George Floyd protests last year?Â
Outrageous doesn’t quite cover it. Shameful, disgraceful, disgusting, as local businesses put it. All true. But above all else, these sorts of games by our elected prosecutors are dangerous.
In New York, people were caught on camera pulling up in SUVs, stealing goods by the trash-bagful, and driving off. This is peaceful protest? This is social justice? And yet Bronx DA Darcel Clark and Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. claim they can’t prove cases, so they are tossing them by the hundreds. BULL. They don’t want to put in the resources and work to see thieves and rioters get punished.Â
But when you send the message that some crimes just don’t matter, whether because they happened during a political protest or because you think prosecutions are unfair, it leads to the breakdown of social order, an increase in violence — and ultimately, the destruction of neighborhoods occupied by the very people these hypocrites claim to want to help.
In San Francisco, stores are closing because shoplifters are no longer being arrested. In Minnesota, some businesses are deciding it’s not worth being in the areas that were set aflame last May.
Here, everyone who stole and vandalized will do it again — because there are no consequences. It’s the small businesses that will suffer the most. It’s the minority owners who will suffer the most. It’s the African American and Hispanic neighborhoods that will suffer the most.Â
Safe in their smug perches as judge and jury, the DAs will be welcome at any AOC fundraiser. Justice, and what is right, be damned.
